Vacation or War: Return
by LoorTheDarkElf
Summary: All she wanted to do was go home; to escape and survive. How could she know that survival could very well cost the world? Book two of the VoW trilogy
1. Changed

**AND WE'RE LIVE!**

Well, not really, but oh well. For the on-coming readers, welcome to the second book of Vacation or War, also known as VoW. If you haven't read the first book, I suggest you do so... it's a big freakin' story so it shouldn't be tough to find. Or just click on my username and find it there.

For those who _did_ just come from book one, pissed off with the ending that leaves us with our lady Loor looking like she's going to royally fuck some shit up for the sake of her own lively hood, and a veiled threat that someone might have to beat her head in before she figures anything out, let's get started on book two!

Unlike the last time around, I won't be posting clean up notes at the beginning. Just my general disclaimers, and the author's corner at the end. As always you can find me on Deviant Art as LoorTheDarkElf, and see some artwork to go with the stories.

**Notes for veteran readers (if you're not a vet, feel free to skip down to the chapter heading.) **

As you might've noticed by the changed name of the book, a lot of shit has gotten done fucked up between point A and point B. This book of VoW is **nearly a completely different story **than what it used to be. There's a lot of reasons for this, but I feel the story will be improved by the changes I put in. Just like last time, if there's a scene you **really wanted me to keep, or at least attempt to replicate, PM me about it and I will see what I can do. **Other than that, buckle up and enjoy the ride.

**Another note: **A small change was put into the beginning of the previous book to do with Fury. Basically, we never got a particularly good look at her with her arms uncovered. Why? Because of something I'm changing in this book. MEOW.

**Disclaimer: I do not own Jak, Daxter, or any other trademarks. I'm not making any money with this work of fanfiction; it is for entertainment purposes only. **

Are we ready?

Are we set?

HEEEEEREEE WEEEE GOOOOOOO!

**Vacation Or War- Return  
****Chapter One- Changes**

Chelsea was relaxing on the lounge chair in front of the window, looking outside with the phone in her hand. She was waiting for Lauren to show up. Usually she wasn't so impatient, but today was special.

Lauren had a device she'd been working on for a long time that was finally done, and they were going to do a test of it. For that, Chelsea was excited. She felt like she was going to be part of something big. She didn't always understand Lauren when she talked about her inventions, but she could follow enough to know that this device, if it worked, would revolutionize the way the world thought about energy.

That and she was finally going to see the second Jak game; that was something else Lauren was supposed to be bringing over. They were going to play it together, just like the first one. Games and technology made for a fun-sounding day, and she couldn't wait to get started.

So there she lay on the white lounge seat, looking out the window at the drive-way, expecting to see the red truck Lauren's mother drove at any minute. She kept the phone in her hand because Lauren would call if she was going to be late; she always did. It could be admitted that she was something of a control freak, and seemed to have the idea that the whole world might come crumbling down if she didn't keep tabs on it, so she was hyper-active about details and exact times of when things were happening. It got annoying, but it was good to know that if anything went wrong Lauren would always call first.

As she relaxed against the back of the seat, Chelsea suddenly found it hard to breathe. Her body arrested in a singular moment of discomfort. It wasn't really pain... just the feeling in her head, and the rest of her person, that something was very... _wrong. _It frightened her, making her worry that a panic attack was coming on. She tried to focus on it, fighting to breathe deeply and calmly and try to ride it out. She'd had panic attacks before, usually after nightmares, or in paranoid fits right before going to sleep. This felt similar, but not the same.

It got even freakier when, the moment she completely focused on it, it went away. Suddenly her breathing came easily, like a great weight had been lifted off of her. She sat there a moment, taking deep breaths and wondering what the hell was going on.

She got the distinct feeling that however she expected this day to go... it wasn't going that way anymore.

The phone in her hand rang. She picked it up quickly, waiting just long enough for the caller ID to tell her it was Lauren.

"Hey." She said as she picked up. "You on your way soon?"

"_Yeah, mom's just about ready to go. Listen, Chelsea... I'm not bringing the device." _

"What?" She balked into the phone. "But... Lauren... you promised! I know you think it isn't ready but you gotta test it!"

"_Not ready...?" _Chelsea had noticed it when she picked up, but it got worse as her friend spoke. Lauren sounded... different. Tired, but the girl was always tired since she never went to bed on time. No... there was something that had changed about her friend, but Chelsea wasn't quite sure what it was. _"Oh no, it's as ready as it's ever going to get. That's why I'm going to try and talk your mom into letting you come home with me tomorrow. I want to get everyone together for a demonstration." _

"How do you...? Did you test it without me?" She knew there was a slight whine in her voice, but she expected Lauren to keep her posted on things.

"_No... not exactly... Good fucking Christ. Chelsea, I know this is going to sound a little weird, but please tell me what day it is." _

"What day...?"

"_Yeah. What's today's date?" _

Chelsea shook her head. It was summer vacation; remembering what the date was somethin she did while she was in school, not kicking it on her days off. Still, she pulled out the clunky cellphone in her pocket which would have the date displayed along with the time when she flipped it open. "Eight- fourteen- oh-four."

"_August fourteenth... holy shit..." _

"What's the big deal?" Chelsea was getting _very_ creeped out. "Trying to remember how long it is till your birthday?"

"_My...? No, I don't really care about that right now. I'm... I'll see you soon, okay?"_

"You're still bringing the game, right?" She had to ask. She didn't want to totally lose all the things she was excited for that day.

"_Of course. See you soon, Imoto-chan." _

Chelsea hung up several seconds after she heard Loor's line click off. She was sure of it now; something was very wrong with her friend. Or something big had happened. If anything she sounded... older. More commanding than usual, but not in a bossy way. No, she just sounded like she had more authority. And even then, she had sounded horribly shaken, particularly by what day it was.

And sadly, since Lauren didn't really have that much going on in her shut-in life, Chelsea couldn't imagine what might've happened.

Again she looked out into the driveway, waiting for her friend. This time, it was with more worry than excitement. With such tension, fifteen minutes felt a lot longer than it usually did before the truck came around the corner from the street and turned to her house. At once she got up, seeing Lauren get out of the passenger door, a black messenger bag on her shoulder and a bundle of blankets under her other arm.

Chelsea unlocked and opened the front door, calling out to greet her friend. "Loor! Hey!"

Lauren looked up when her nickname was used, flashing an odd smile. She said one last goodbye to her mother before managing the truck door shut behind her and coming up the front walk to enter the house. Chelsea shut the door once she was inside, in the process of locking up when...

"HEY!" She yelped as Lauren had turned to hug her around the middle, squeezing her so hard she was sure something would break. "Jeez, what's gotten into you?" She didn't get an answer as her friend tucked her head down against the back of her shoulder, still hanging on tightly.

It took her a moment to realize her friend was on the vurge of tears.

"Fury... God you have no idea how good it is to see you..."

"Did someone die?" She couldn't help but ask, looking back at the person she often called '_onee-san' _meaning 'big sister.'

"Died... is going to die... but didn't." It was on this note that Loor pulled herself back together, untying her boots and picking her things up once more. "Your room?" She quested as to where they were going to hang out for the moment. The gaming stuff was upstairs in Chelsea's proper bedroom, but the girls always slept downstairs where the big TV was, along with several very cushy couches.

"Uh... yeah." Chelsea offered to take Loor's blanket pile, but the girl wouldn't have it, leading the way upstairs and dumping her things on the floor.

Chelsea's bedroom was bright pink, something Loor would usually grouse about every time she entered. Now she didn't seem bothered, simply looking around and smiling softly at her surroundings. She had left her bag on the bed that Chelsea almost never used, spreading her blankets in front of the small TV that was hooked up to Chelsea's PS2.

"Fury..." She spoke as she set herself up. "Have you felt... strange at all since this morning?"

"Yeah." Chelsea nodded, blinking at the use of her nick-name. Loor didn't call her by it that often, and now she'd said it twice. "Just before you called me... I was worried the ghost in the house was acting up again... wait, did you feel it too?"

"I..." Loor sat back on the pillow that had been in the middle of her blankets, staring at the TV which was currently off. She then looked up at Fury, eyes wide and plaintive. Returning her gaze, Chelsea saw many differences in her friend that were beyond how she actually looked. Loor had a particular aura to her; when she walked into a room it was with the strength and presence of a bull. Her hard headed and stubborn nature showed in everything she did, as did her natural desire to lead. Rare was the expression of fear, or for her to be unsure.

So, with her current expression, her face looked broken. Her brow was knitted, eyes unbelieving of the world around her, lips a tight and straight line across her face that didn't know whether to express joy or horror. In a word, she was confused.

It was at that moment that Chelsea zeroed in on her friend's eyes. Something was off about them, and it didn't take long to come clear. They were the wrong color. Loor had blue eyes that turned green when she sat in the dark for a long time, but these were not the eyes that Chelsea remembered.

No. They were dark green around the pupil, rimmed in a rich violet.

"What the heck happened to you?" Chelsea asked, coming down to sit by her friend, staring. "Did you get contacts or something...? Your eyes..."

At mention, Loor shut them. "I can't explain that yet." She said quickly, frowning. "I... I was so worried mom would notice... You have a set of blue color contacts, right? Can I borrow them...? I... If my family sees this... I can't explain this to them. Not ever. You, Alex, Damian... you guys might understand... but they never will."

Chelsea glanced to her door. Her mother was currently napping her room, just across the hall. At that moment, she saw fit to shut the door despite how ungodly warm it would get in her room as long as sunlight was streaming in the window. "Sure. Yeah. Do you got contact solution?"

"Alex forgot some at my house, I can use that." Lauren was shaking her head, putting her hands up to her skull. "I... I need to think. You want to put the game in? It's in the top of my pack... you can play."

That was one oddity too far for Chelsea. Loor was a huggy person with her friends, so she could live with an out-of-place squish fest, or even a sudden and strange eye-color, but Loor letting _someone else hold the controller_ in her presence was too out of character to ignore.

"Lauren... what's wrong? What happened?" She came to sit next to her friend, who was beginning to rock on the spot. "Please, you can tell me."

"You won't believe me..." She shook her head furiously. "No-one will. I shouldn't have come over so quickly, I should have stalled a day... gotten my head in order... but I knew you had contacts. I need them..."

Now it looked like Loor was going to have the panic attack, hyperventilating and hugging herself on the floor. As strange as she was acting, Chelsea wasn't put off. Instead, she returned the hug she'd gotten at the door, holding her adoptive sister around the shoulders. "_Onee-san..._ Calm down. You don't act like this..."

"I... I suppose I don't." She conceded. "Never had reason to."

"What..." Chelsea hesitated on the question. "What can I do? Is there anything I can do to help you?"

"Huh?" A hand came loose from Loor's self-hug to clear blond strands of hair out of her face, blinking at Fury. "I... Just let me be until I've gotten my brain straightened out. I'll wanna use your computer later. Go ahead, play the game. I'll... I think I might take a nap."

"It's only ten in the morning." Fury pointed out, putting a hand to her friend's forehead. "You're not sick, are you?"

"I wouldn't come here sick; you'd be sure to get it with your weak immune system..." Loor grumbled, shaking her head and stretching out on the back edge of her blanket, furthest away from the TV. Chelsea could easily sit and play as she took some quiet time to herself. "And it's already been quite a day for me..."

Slowly, unsure, Chelsea backed off and did as Loor suggested. Carefully stepping over her friend she went digging in her pack, finding the game they'd been planning on playing together that day. Jak II: Renegade. Oddly enough, Chelsea didn't get as much pleasure from opening the case and popping the disk into her PS2 as she thought she would've.

She wasn't much of a gamer when it came to platforming; Loor was usually at the handlebars for these types of games. Fury was a JRPG and button-mashing fighting game chick. Plus Jak and Daxter was Lauren's most favorite game of all time; she was quite obsessed.

And now, when she'd usually be squealing with excitement about playing the game with her best friend, she had her head on a pillow, eyes closed and her fingers playing amongst themselves as she puzzled out things unknown.

Chelsea turned on the TV and decided there wasn't much else she could do about it. As strange as her friend was acting, it was clear she wouldn't get any answers until Lauren was ready to give them.

Starting a new game, Chelsea noticed as Loor rolled over in reponse to Samos's voice coming through the speakers, putting the pillow over her head as if the words disturbed her.

* * *

**The Author's Corner**

Hello everyone! We've had a productive day, haven't we? And I haven't eaten a single thing all fucking day... I think I'm going to go have a bagel. With strawberry cream cheese. Or just go out to MacDonalds for a mocha frappe... I love those things.

MEOW!

-Loor


	2. Dreaming

**Disclaimer: I don't own Jak and Daxter**

**Vacation or War- Return  
****Chapter Two- Dreaming**

It had been like waking up from a dream, just to enter another dream. Loor remembered it all very clearly; she'd been standing in Onin's tent, watching the wash of white light. It had gotten insanely bright, so bright that she had to close her eyes... and when she opened them, she found herself in a memory. The light faded to leave her in a moment she had been regretting since she first landed in Haven; she'd been in her bedroom, properly packing the VC-M1 for transport.

Her reaction had been instantaneous; she'd taken the box she'd put it in and hurled it across the room. It had hit her mirror, causing a break in the reflective pane, which infuriated her all the more. She knew, in the padded box, her device would have taken no damage, and she'd just broken the mirror on her sliding closet door.

But in breaking the mirror she'd been forced to look at herself. There she stood in her dirty bedroom, once again the little girl she'd been before leaving home. Blond hair on her head, still her early-bloom B-cup, dressed in night pants and a tank. She wasn't sure whether she wanted to laugh or cry.

She wasn't sure about anything. She'd felt it, just before the light had taken her.

She'd felt wrong.

The feeling of a dream was yet to leave her, going upstairs and finding her mother ready to take her over to Chelsea's house, calling her friend and finding her to be alive and well, actually arriving and being able to hold her little sister again. All of it was too incredible to take.

And yet real as could be. There was no dream. Dr. Marvel wasn't going to pop his head in and see how she was doing. Onin had done as promised; Loor had been sent back, and by taking action created an alternate reality where she and Chelsea never traveled to Haven. Their original reality still existed, as made clear by her strange eye-color, but now so did this one. The loop confused her slightly, but as Pecker had said, all she had to reference was her _actual_ memory. That was the path she'd taken herself. She'd been, she'd come back, and now she could move forward from there.

She could be home.

But in that was an ever more audacious task. Now curled up on the floor, trying to ignore Chelsea's attempts at playing Jak II and regularly falling off of various bits of platforming, she considered what needed to be done for her to survive in this time. There was no joy to be gained by returning to her friends and family until she secured her own life.

But she already had a plan for that. Her device would be the key.

The VC-M1 would be used in demonstration for her friends tomorrow, but there would be a bit more to it than that. If eco worked like she thought it would, an isolated activation of the device would trigger the closest converter to activate and remove the eco source. As long as she and her friends were far enough away, they wouldn't be taken with it.

And with the right tools, she hoped to record the event and figure out _where_ the converter was. She'd seen it herself, the one that had landed her in Haven; there had been two shapes taken out of it. One was the globe for her device, and the other was the arced power from Morgan's original arrival departure from their time. That mark would already be made, Morgan left back in the nineties, technically eight years ago. Essentially, it was safe to disable.

Once she found it, and broke it, she'd be free to make eco for herself. Eco which she needed to live.

"_We need to go back to the city, Jak!"_

She twitched at Daxter's voice coming from the TV, looking over her shoulder to see that Fury had finally conquered the ruined tower and was attempting to return to the city... only to fall in the swamp water and suffer a slow death, segment by segment of health.

She hefted a depressed sigh, turning away once more and re-securing the pillow over her ears... which felt like they'd been sliced off. She'd gotten used to the longer variety, enough that her normal and short ears bothered her. Still, that brought up something she hadn't though too much about yet.

How was she going to properly blend in? Fury had contacts for her, which would effectively disguise her eyes as long as no-one looked too closely... and if someone did she'd just say she wanted to try out a new shade and hope they didn't demand she take them off. The next hurdle was, if what Pecker told her was correct, she was about to start growing at an unprecedented rate. The eco taint had come with her, and her body would reclaim it and the years it had accelerated her past. Her hair would change, leaving her with a sixteen-year-old body to explain and raven-black hair that she could only blame on the eco twisting her genetics and pigmentation.

She'd have to preempt her hair by dying it. Alex had the at-home kits; hopefully she had black. Usually she'd worry about permission, as her mother was hugely against body-manipulation, but that was the last thing on her mind. If Mom didn't like it, she'd survive the lecture. All else failed, she could act like a 'troubled teen' until the world left off.

She'd have to get a head-start on being 'normal.' Her work with energy would never be able to leave her little corner of life. If her time discovered eco, it would be a disaster. They weren't ready for it; not without the precursors to regulate the more dangerous types. What else she'd do with her life, she wasn't sure... anything seemed like it would be easy after what she'd been through. The military was an idea, but if they took her away from home for more than a few months she was as good as dead with how quickly her body burned up eco, even without using any of the powers.

She was getting ahead of herself. Maybe the taint would kill her before then. Either contamination or a shortage was going to be the end of her, she knew that. She just didn't know _when, _and thus anything more than a year away wasn't really of her concern. Now she had to square away her source, show the VC-M1 to her friends, explain to them what happened, and get their help on finding and destroying the converter. She knew she could trust them on this one, which was an odd feeling for her. Previously, she would have made a fool-hardy attempt to do this all on her own.

But she'd ended up nearly dead, a few times, trying to do everything herself. She'd learned to trust out of necessity.

She tired not to think of who taught her.

"_I think we need to go back to the city." _

"Daxter, I'm tryin' to think here..." Loor rolled over, whining before she was reminded that she was grousing at a TV screen. Fury had gotten back to the last stretch of dead town when the ottsel once again repeated his blatant direction of what needed to be done.

Suddenly pausing, Chelsea thrust the control out in front of Loor's face. "Take this. _Please." _

Loor stared blankly at the controller for a moment. Then, slowly, she nodded, sitting up and taking it.

She kept her comments to herself as she played, about how the animation was cartoony and the voices were actually a little off, and how actually driving a zoomer took a lot more concentration. She didn't mention memories as they came to mind, though she took missions in the order she remembered doing them, the ones she didn't go along on getting mixed in according to whatever was closest.

Like most gamers, she entered a trance-like state, totally zoning during actual play and getting pulled back out for scenes. Eventually Chelsea's mother woke up from her nap and checked on the girls, and a dinner of soft-shell tacos was a few hours later. Then it was back to the game, the door to the room left open and the window lifted to let a cleansing breeze run through.

Loor didn't realize it until she was blinking the tears out of her eyes, but she had begun to cry a little during some of the scenes. Particularly those dealing with Vin, or parts where Chelsea was laughing at the trouble twin's antics. And Chelsea, though it was clear she saw, was doing her best not to ask. There seemed to be a _lot_ going on, and Fury was respecting Loor by not asking till she was ready to explain.

It was about ten at night when they saved down, just after the class two races, to go to the lower level. This was habit; about ten was when adult swim played things like Full Metal Alchemist and Ghost in the Shell, shows both girls enjoyed. Fury got the TV to the right channel as Loor set up in her usual place on the loveseat, Fury's air mattress on the floor; the reason the girl _never_ slept in her pink room.

An hour later, Fury had fallen asleep. Loor took control of the remote, turning the TV most of the way down so that when she decided to sleep she'd be able.

She then got up and turned her attention to the computer in the back corner of the room.

She had some curiosity, and thanks to the internet, she might've been able to satisfy it for once.

* * *

Fury was dreaming.

In the dream, she was sitting on the lounge seat in front of the window on the main level of her home, looking out the window, waiting for Lauren. She was due any time now. She had the phone in her hand, just in cause her friend was going to be late and called to tell her so.

But the phone didn't ring. The red truck came around the corner, and Fury let Loor into the house after the girl said goodbye to her mom. She had her green backpack and a pillow.

No blankets. And a green pack. Why did that strike her as odd? The whole thing felt like de'ja'vu.

She was going to ask a question, but Loor pulled a case from her bag to answer before any words were traded. She had her device with her, ready to install and test.

They rushed upstairs, both eager to see if it would work, or if it would have a total meltdown. Loor tossed her bag on the far side of Fury's pink bedroom, pulling out the PS2 and quickly taking it apart after returning to her bag to get some tools she'd brought with her.

Fury stood aside, watching eagerly as her sister removed some parts, like the fan, so that her device would fit into the PS2's shell. It was supposed to cut on heat, so removing the fan wasn't a problem.

"Is it ready?" She asked impatiently when the device went in, unaware of the other connections that needed to be made.

"Hold your damn horses. It'll be done when I'm done with it."

"But I wanna play!" She came closer to watch. "If there's anythin you've talked about more than this thing, it's the game you brought over!"

"It's _not_ a thingy!" Loor snapped. "If you gotta call it anything, the technical term is VC-M1, alright? _Now,_ I'm almost finished, so if you wait a few more minutes here, life will be good. If you need something to do, go get the game from my bag. It's sitting right on top."

Fury felt sheepish for causing Loor to snap, backing off and doing as she was told. "Oh... okay... sorry..."

"Ugh... don't apologize. I was just up late is all... the usual; kicking my own ass."

"I know." Fury sighed. "I'm used to it." She had found the game and brought it back; Jak II.

"Don't be." Loor had just closed up the game system again, setting the playstation upright before stretching. "I don't want you to back down when I get mad... I'll never change that way. Someone has gotta beat me back if I"m ever going to learn to deal with people... _nicely." _

"So what? You want me to whack you over the head with a newspaper and say 'bad Loor!' like you're a dog or something?"

The two girls looked at each other before laughing.

"Something like that... anyway, we're ready to go here."

Excitement peaked; they turned the system on and put the game in, the fact that the power came on being the first sign of success. The next was when the game booted up, everything functioning as normal. Fury leaned over to hug her friend. "I'd offer champagne if I had any, but congrats!" She giggled. "It looks like it's working just fine."

"Yeah... well, so much for Damian thinkin' it wouldn't work."

They selected a new save slot, the controller in Loor's hands. The game began, the opening scene running.

The game froze. They both reacted with confusion, but Loor was sure it was a malfunction of her device.

She reached to the back of the playstation to turn it off and check it.

Fury put her hand on her friend's back.

A strange feeling jolted up her hand. It was rude and painful, making her want to scream but finding herself unable. Pins picked up her spine as the feeling to worse. She saw purple sparks where her hand made contact with Loor's back.

Then there was light, if one could describe it as that. It was a flash, but it seemed dark in quality. Impossibly bright, but still dark, both binding and blinding. Fury felt as if a giant hand had come down and ripped her form her flesh. Her body was nothing more than a discarded husk as she, her true self, went somewhere else.

It was dark. And cold. There was a metal floor under her. Where was she? Red and blue on the floor... stars? No, they wouldn't be inside, or on the floor. Little lights, marking paths to take. There was a red path and a blue path. Where was she? Where did they go?

Her head hurt. She groaned, laying it back down on the metal floor. She couldn't feel the hand that had been on Loor's back.

_But Loor. Where is she? _

Her head came back up, questing for her sister, who was nowhere to be seen.

"Where the hell did you come from?"

Her head jerked around. There was someone behind her, questioning her presence and origins. Honestly, she'd rather know where she was before she began explaining where she came from. In the darkness she couldn't really see who was there.

But the sound of heavy boots let her know that whoever was there was coming for her.

She opened her mouth to scream.

* * *

**The Author's Corner**

I work too hard. I really do. Okay, I'm done for the night. For serious this time. I'm going to feed the fish and go to bed.

Most likely anyway.

-Loor


	3. Paper Trail

**Disclaimer: I do not own Jak and Daxter or the concept of eco.**

**Vacation or War- Return  
****Chapter Three- Paper Trail**

Where Loor had been blessing the existence of the internet one moment, she was damning it two hours later. Granted, she'd found the information she was after, but it had taken a lot longer than planned with all the extra goop a single Google-search would get her. She'd started with finding a Minneapolis newspaper archive, though she had to sift through three pages of results where is was the New York Times with articles mentioning Minneapolis. Once the archive was found, the keyword she was searching made all the difference.

She was looking for Morgan. Or, better put, what had happened to Morgan. She was contaminated too; it was a lesser contamination, but Loor had seen it. Her bandaged up hand, and the arm it was attached to hardly functioning. Morgan had never said if it pained her or if it was simply numb and paralyzed, but if the woman ever went to a doctor after returning home Loor was sure someone would notice it.

And with an affliction so rare, she was sure to end up in the news. Loor trusted papers more than she trusted TV networks or blogs, so she was up for some time, going down various search avenues. Looking up Morgan's name, without a last name to match, turned up too many results. Looking up specific words like contamination and taint got her some _interesting_ results, but never the right ones. This time didn't know what had happened to Morgan, and the woman wouldn't be too apt to explain it; she'd already tried once and the story she'd come back with had been turned into a work of fiction.

She racked her brain. What would her time see contamination as? What did eco cause when people came in contact with it?

_Cell mutation. _

Loor's next search was the one that actually turned up something useful; she searched for articles regarding any new, strange, or just straight unknown types of cancer.

Again, a lot of what she turned up was useless. Scares about untested chemicals causing new cancers, how genetically modified food might get people sick, fears of cell mutation caused by nuclear power keeping power plants from being built, and so on.

When she did find an article, it was a smaller one. Something that might get a blurb in the corner of the front page, but with most of it hidden inside the pages.

It hadn't been what she expected, but it had been what she was looking for. The date was for September 8th, 2001. Three years ago, about.

An article about a woman who had amputated her own arm and survived.

There were no pictures, and the woman declined to having her identity revealed, but there was a lot of focus on the limb she'd decided she didn't want anymore; how it appeared gray, many of the cells producing benign tumors that could have turned cancerous but at the very least should have been extremely painful. Even stranger, many of the mutated cells were still alive several hours after amputation. The reason it made it into the news was because the woman wouldn't let the doctors keep it after that, demanding that her discarded limb be burned instead of studied.

A search of related articles let Loor breathe a sigh of relief; she'd taken the doctors to court and won. The arm was still technically a part of her body, and could not be used without her consent. Cremation was carried out as she ordered. Loor had no doubt that this woman was Morgan, though it had to be true desperation not to die thanks to the contamination that drove her to such an extreme solution. Morgan would have supervised the cremation herself, to make sure no one pulled a fast one on her; she was smart like that.

In all the years since her original onset, Morgan had lost an entire arm to contamination. Granted, that onset was an extremely small amount of dark eco, and it had been concentrated to just her hand. All this did was remind Loor of the effective and unstoppable course that contamination would run; it gave her no hints as to how long she had.

She backed up to the main search page, thinking and chewing her thumbnail. Again, she searched Morgan's name with reference to her amputation, curious of what else might show up.

She was shocked to find a headline. 2004, just this year, in the middle of January...

_Auto-amputee Morgan Sire vanished. _

Morgan Sire. There was talk of what she did to her own arm in the article, and how she was discovered missing when a fire broke out in her home. When the fire department got there the house was already too far gone, and they found no-one inside... but all the neighbors reported that Morgan had been home. Her car was in the drive, and all other evidence pointed to her being in the house... but she wasn't. There was also a reported power surge just before the fire broke out, making it thought that the burn was triggered by an appliance malfunction. Some thought she spooked and ran out into the snow, but she never came back, and no footprints were leading away from the house.

Morgan lived alone, not even any pets. No one knew what happened to her.

"You went back..." Loor muttered, staring at the screen. "Twice, now that I think about it. You had to go back once to get the rest of the story, or there never would have been a third game... or maybe you stayed after I left... and came back later... but you couldn't stay away..."

This time there was pictures of the burnt out home; the fire had started in the garage. One might've found it odd that a woman had a two-car garage and still parked her vehicle outside, but that wasn't what Loor was examining. The fire had started near the middle of the garage, the whole roof collapsing in and giving it a path to burn into the house, taking half of the modest town home and the rest of the roof coming down. Still, in the case where the fire had started, the garage was oddly empty and clean.

"Her workshop... she built it and activated it there... but she worked with the plasma... the sparks must have started the fire."

Morgan also would have had to build a more powerful device; the converter reacted to the _amount_ of eco used. The first time Morgan was thrown from this time line, she'd only gone as far as Sandover. Still, Loor had no doubt the woman had managed it, perhaps even coming up with a conversion model between how much eco was produced and how many years were traveled.

She studied the picture of the garage carefully. It was a black-and-white shot, and not of particularly good quality, several shadows made by the sun rising behind the wreck. The photographer must have been having an off day to shoot that angle.

Tired eyes looked for any other information that might be gained, blinking blearily. She felt like she was missing something among the shadows.

There was a dark mark on the wall. It didn't match up with any of the shadows, and it was away from the rest of the burning. Part of the garage was untouched, the far wall, and there was a scorch mark on the wall.

Her drowsiness was banished as a sudden shot of inspiration hit her.

Loor rushed to her pack, digging quickly and finding her USB storage device that went everywhere with her. Quickly, she saved the image onto it along with the URL for the article. She had a theory, but she'd need more proof. The scorch mark could just been a poor-quality photo, or a bird flying by and casting a shadow, or, or or... it didn't matter. She had an idea, and if she was right about it she'd be able to find the device she was after a _lot_ easier, and it would all be a simple exercise in math.

Using energy, any kind of energy, usually had some sort of heat byproduct. The whole point of her own devices, converting electrical plasma energy down into a liquid, was founded in the idea of making something more efficient with less energy waste in heat because the molecules were slowed down, but the _release_ would still cause heat.

A sudden release of a large amount of energy could cause a burn. A scorch mark in a wall in the direction of the device that used it. The only problem was, in the case of Morgan's device, she didn't know it's exact placement in relation to the mark on the wall, or even if the mark on the wall was what she thought it was.

But she'd be testing her own device, and if the same phenomenon occurred... it was as simple as a triangle.

She opened an extra document on her USB's window, typing a hurried formula dealing in similar objects. She'd have to do the test with her device on a specifically measured raised platform. A meter, just over three feet, would do her well enough. She liked meters because they divided out better than feet. If she was right, when she used the device it would cause a burn on the ground somewhere around it. From the top of the platform to that alleged mark, and from the bottom to the mark, and she would have a triangle.

A second test would have to be done from another location, at least a few towns over if her guess to the device's range was worth anything. She'd have two triangles, both pointing at the same object. If she increased their size equally until the points met in the middle on a map, the side which was originally her platform would tell her how deep the object was, the other two lines serving to give her the exact location.

_God_ she loved geometry.

She was admiring the simplicity of the idea when she heard a noise over by the couches. Fury was fussing in her sleep. Curious and feeling more confident than before, Loor got up from the computer after saving to check on her little sister.

She had just crawled over the couch to look down at where she slept on the floor when Chelsea sat straight up in bed, hyperventilating; panicking.

"Oh shit..." Loor looked around, quickly moving to turn on the light. Fury had panic attacks and fits of paranoia from time to time, particularly when she'd just gotten majorly sick and was thinking about how her weak immune system made her closer than most to her greatest fear; death. It always happened around bedtime, whether they were just settling in and the darkness was freaking her out, or she'd just woken up from a nightmare.

This would be the latter. Loor knew she couldn't do anything for her friend but watch; panic attacks were impossible to stop; all that could be done was the ride them out and avoid shocking the person any worse than they already were. In turning on the light Loor tried to dispel any shadows that might appear as monsters to Fury, then coming down from the couch to sit on the end of her air mattress and speak to her calmly.

"Fury, you still in there?" She asked, doing her best to be soothing. "C'mon out. It's only three in the morning, you made it most of the way there."

Chelsea didn't speak for a long time, swallowing and breathing, segments of words coming out but never full or understandable language. It was only several minutes and deep gulps of air later that she got her brain back in order, blinking and staring at her friend.

"Everything okay?" Loor asked. "You alright?"

"I... nightmare..." She stuttered. "We... we shouldn't play video games before bed anymore."

Loor blinked. "Why not?" She quested slowly. "What happened...?"

"N-not sure. I don't really remember... I just think it had something to do with the game we'd been playing."

Slowly, somewhat suspicious, Loor backed off. She couldn't force Chelsea to talk, but she got the feeling the girl had gone through more than a garden variety night-terror. And mention of the game made her even more curious.

But she'd leave it be. It was Fury's decision on what to say and when.

She returned to the computer, working on the fine-details of her experiment. Hopefully she'd be able to get ahold of Damian in the morning... her demonstration would have to wait a day or two while he built platforms for her.

"Aren't you going to sleep?" Chelsea asked from where she'd flopped back on the pillow.

"Too busy to sleep." Loor answered, though it was hardly a mumble as she was concentrating again. "I'm going to have to show you guys the device in a few days instead of tomorrow... I need a little more time to prepare."

"I thought you said it was ready."

"The device is ready." Loor snickered softly to herself. "But there's somethin bigger than my new invention going on. You'll see when the demo happens. I just need to get in contact with Damian for some extra materials."

"Uh-oh..."

"What?"

"I know that tone of voice." Fury's voice was groaning in exhaustion. "You've got an idea... and by the sounds of it, it's scary."

Loor smirked slightly, feeling some of the joy her work used to bring her. "Quite."

* * *

Loor had left Fury's house at a time that was much earlier than usual. Usually, the girls would hang out for most of the day after sleeping over, playing games, talking, or otherwise just hanging out. Of course, the girls would usually have slept in till noon, intermittently watching cartoons as neither wanted to admit they were awake.

In this case, Loor had never gone to bed, and Fury woke up again at six in the morning, still mildly freaked out by her night time episode. When Loor's mother called and eight to ask when was a good time to pick her up, the answer had been 'Now' since there'd been nothing but an awkward silence between the adoptive sisters. Loor had a secret that had to wait till her demonstration, and Fury was being tight-lipped about her dreams. Loor had left the game in Fury's possession, though she doubted the girl would be able to play it where she left it. Maybe she'd start at the beginning again.

Loor, on the other hand, got home and plugged her USB into the computer in her bedroom. She had to save a copy of what she'd been working on to her hard drive; the storage device was for her back-up in case her desktop failed. Everything that was really important to her was at least backed up once, and in some cases three times. Reels of disks had information burned onto them, and a second USB was tucked away in one of her desk drawers, which was near inaccessible with how her room was currently set-up.

Once everything was safely stored she unplugged and shut down, flopping back on her bed, which was pushed right up against her computer desk in lieu of a chair. She'd spent so many nights working on her computer that she liked to be able to roll right into her pillows when she was done, or right out of them first thing in the morning if she was working particularly hard on a project.

Laying there, she looked up at her walls. They were plastered with the works of her hands; fanart for the Jak and Daxter games. She mainly drew Jak, almost afraid to try ottsels. Staring up at the display, she had to laugh at herself quietly.

How the fuck could she have known what was going to happen to her? All her admiration and hero worship had only served to make leaving Haven all the more difficult.

_Leaving him._ She thought to herself, finding herself steadily more irritated and annoyed by the faces on the wall. They stared at her, questioned her judgment. From pieces of paper, held by a rainbow of thumbtacks, they watched and wondered.

Raising from her bed, she began to remove them. She had a bowl for the thumbtacks, the pictures going in a box for other artwork that was too old to display but too dear to her to throw away. One sheet at a time, she uncovered her walls, leaving behind little pin holes from where the tacks had been, revealing white walls that hadn't seen the light of day since she'd gotten the okay to use pins to put her drawings up as wallpaper.

She thanked goodness that there was a blanket over her window, preventing sunlight from showing her what her bedroom lights could not; she was sure the walls looked dirty and broken.

She certainly felt that way. She felt slow and sluggish as she put the box and her bowl of tacks away, flopping back on her bed and staring at the ceiling.

She thought about taking a nap, exhausted from how long she'd been awake, but she didn't want to get up again to turn out her light... and as long as it was on her eyes would play with the tiny shadows on the rough-textured ceiling. Every time she thought about closing her eyes she'd suddenly find a shape that interested her, or a design, or even a face.

Also, if she wanted to sleep, she'd have to take the contacts out. That also required getting up.

"What am I doing...?" She asked the ceiling. "I'm sure there's something productive I could be putting my time into. I'm quite positive of it... so why am I not doing it?"

She lacked a good answer for her question.

Rolling over, she reached for the cordless phone she'd left just over the edge of her bed. Dialing quickly, she hoped the person she was calling was actually awake.

She put the phone to her ear, listening as the line rang twice before someone picked up.

"Hey. Is Damian up yet?"

* * *

**The Author's Corner**

Trucking along... MEOW. I do love geometry.

-Loor


	4. Pulling Strings

**Disclaimer: I don't own Jak. (Haha...)**

**Vacation or War- Return  
****Chapter Four- Pulling Strings**

"_Tomorrow?"_

"If you can. I'm kinda on a deadline here."

"_What kinda deadline? You mean you're actually gonna do something with this one?"_

"Fuck you."

Loor found herself growling at her friend. Damian was one of her oldest buddies, having known him for three to four years where Fury and Alex were relativity new friends. The two had been considered boyfriend and girlfriend all the way through elementary school, but that really had more to do with the fact that they were a boy and a girl willing to deal with each other at a young age, not any actual romantic feelings. Their 'breakup' had been right before summer vacation, but the honest truth was Loor just went and set the rumor mill straight. There'd never been that much there.

Damian was also the one who gave Lauren her nickname. Loor wasn't short for anything, it was the name of a character in a book they both liked. Loor came from the Pendragon series; a warrior girl who solved all of her problems with violence. Since it was fairly true in her case, the name stuck.

But Damian, being one of her oldest friends, also knew how to piss her off. The kid asked too many questions when she expected people to just listen to her because she was, generally, smarter than them.

"_Testy." _He chuckled over the phone, entertained that he'd gotten a rise out of her. _"You alright? Your voice sounds a little different... At first I thought it was your mom." _

"I'm just tired as fuck, man." She answered, momentarily shutting her eyes. The contacts were bothering her a lot since she wasn't used to wearing them. She was still sprawled out on her bed. It was now a Thursday, Dad away at work and Mom working a later shift, taking a nap while she still had the chance. That left Loor alone in her room for an ample amount of time to do whatever she pleased. "I think I've been awake for thirty hours... maybe more."

"_Shit... why the hell don't you get some sleep?"_

"Figure I'll have some fucked up dreams... life's been weird."

"_Don't even talk about weird dreams, I had one the other night that's still bothering me. Actually, you might be interested in it." _

"Dude, dream theory is Fury's thing."

"_Yeah, but you were in it. Well... kinda anyway. Chelsea too."_

Suddenly, he had her attention. She sat up, feeling a jolt of excitement go up her spine. It was the feeling she got whenever she was piecing something together and the puzzle was coming together. "Really?" She asked, unable to contain her curiosity. Chelsea had reported a nightmare of magnitude; for another friend to speak of an odd night episode had her attention.

"_Really. It was like..." _He paused, thinking of how to phrase it. _"It was like I was living yesterday over again, only we got a phone call from your mom. She talked to my mom for a little bit, and she starts freakin' out, right? And I'm wondering what the hell is going on, when she hands the phone to me and says your mom wants to talk to me. It was really screwed up..."_

"What did my mom say?" Loor asked, managing a calm voice when she wanted to demand answers.

"_She said you and Chelsea had disappeared." _

"What? Did she explain at all?"

"_Yeah, apparently there was some kind of fire up in Chelsea's room while you guys were hanging out, and Chels's mom was almost killed cause she was takin' a nap when it started burning. I thought it was pretty screwy cause you were over at her house last night, weren't you?"_

She blinked, staring at the wall. It was too much to be a coincidence.

_Fire. The people in contact with the device disappearing, assumed dead. _

Lauren now had a pretty damn good guess of what Fury's dream the other night had been.

"_Hello?"_ Damian asked the silence on the other side of the phone.

"Sorry!" Loor shook her head, cursing quietly. "That _is_ pretty fucked up. Hey, dude... could you make two of those platforms for me?"

"_Two? By tomorrow?"_

"No, I'll only need one tomorrow, but I'll need another pretty soon after. I'll explain everything at the demonstration tomorrow. Make sure to include the wiring I asked for. I'm not doing this shit in the house."

"_Am I getting paid for this one? Dad's only willing to let me have so many parts for your little projects without getting something back." _

"Dude, you can have every penny to my name if it makes you happy. I don't really care right now. Just get it done. I'll talk to you later, I got some other phone calls to make."

"_Alright, alright, take it easy. Get some sleep, before you work yourself to death." _

She didn't reply to the joke, hanging up and getting up from her bed, pacing in what little walking space was left in her cluttered and messy room. Her brain was putting things together, making her chew her lip as she considered what these odd dreams her friends were having meant.

Damian had a dream of what would have likely happened if she and Fury had gone through with using the VC-M1, triggering the converter and taking their little trip through time. Fury had also awoken from a terrible nightmare the night before, and though she shared no details Loor was beginning to wonder if she had undergone a similar attack of residual memory.

The other path, so to speak, bleeding through. Both events had technically happened, with people experiencing the difference. It sounded too much like quantum physics with the theory of variable outcomes, and the idea that the different results that could have occurred 'bumping' in the heads of those who lived them.

If she dared to lay down and sleep, would she experience the same thing?

Unlikely. She was the instigator, coming back and creating the second variation of events. She didn't lack the memory; her memory was the only true record... and she honestly wished she could destroy that. There wasn't any point in the memory, only torture.

She wished she'd never used the device in the first place. Where would she be if she hadn't built the VC-M1? If she had never figured it out, successfully used it? She'd be another kid, trying and failing to change the world. She'd turn into an angry teenager with a resentment for the world that never discovered her, eventually give up her pursuits of recognition and settle with being just another human being.

She'd known that before she'd finished the device... but before Haven city, that fate sounded like hell. To be unnoticed, normal, _average_, was a fate worse than death. She was convinced she had to have something going for her, just with how smart she was without really trying that hard. Now that she'd proven it, she'd give anything to have it the other way.

She stopped pacing, looking at the blank wall again. After a moment she began to laugh, but the sound was bitter. Now that she thought about it, she realized she didn't just want her old life back. After living the adventure and going through more pain and suffering than she wanted to talk about, she wanted to be something less than what she had been. She wasn't after her old life, she was after an _average_ life. As if she had something to be ashamed of.

Her laugh grew somewhat hysterical. Some of the rage she knew so well wormed it's way into her mood. She was not one to wish for yesterdays; regret was for people who didn't know what they were doing and did something wrong. She may not have known what the VC-M1 would do to it's fullest extent, but she had run head-long into the brick wall herself. Wishing she was someone else? What the hell happened to her pride? No. She rather liked herself on the good days, and it was no fair to curse herself on the bad ones.

She would dig her way out of this hole. She had a plan, and nothing of the past was going to hold her down to the floor. She had nothing to be sad about.

_**You know, it's kinda funny to listen to you think yourself into circles. **_

Lauren suddenly jolted, both hands coming up to her head to block her ears but forgetting the fact that she was holding the phone still. The result? She smacked herself in the face as she realized there was one very big piece of this mess that she hadn't been able to get away from.

It had just been very quiet for the past thirty hours.

_Lyra... good fucking Christ..._

These thoughts came from shock and pain; she was nursing her sore nose from thwacking herself with the cordless phone.

_**Lovely mood, really. So, this is what you've been pining after for all this time? I can't say I'm impressed... You move at such a leisurely pace compared to before. **_

_I'm waiting on the others. _She defended. _I'm ready whenever they are... aside from asking some permissions._

_**Permissions? From who? This is your house, isn't it? **_

_I'm still a kid. I live with my parents, like most kids. And I respect them, therefor I ask before I have a whole bunch of people over. Tomorrow's Friday, so it should be no problem..._

_**Tedious... what is a fry-day? And what does it have to do with guests?**_

Loor felt like shaking water out of her ears. Hearing Lyra's melodic and seductive tones ask about days of the week disturbed her just a little bit. _Dig through my memories. You'll get it eventually. It'll also save me from having to explain who's who when it comes to my friends. I don't want you... influencing my actions when it comes to some of them. _

**_Oh? I may not know your spoken words, but I do know you were talking to a boy you used to be close friends with just now. Let us see..._** There was a pause where Loor felt that strange itch inside her skull; what felt like a hand ticking through a file cabinet, only the files were bits of her brain. **_Oh my... very cute. Very young, still, but very cute._**

_They're all young, just like me!_ Loor felt herself getting angry at the animal. _I don't know if you got that news flash, but the eco did a lot more than birth you into my brain. I got older; it aged me a good three years... something else I'm going to have to deal with as this body grows into what the eco did to me._

_**That explains why I'm feeling so... new. Your mind was easy to manipulate before, now it feels like when I first became aware of myself... it's quite annoying. **_

_Well... go wiggle your fingers for a while. I have shit I need to be doing. _

_**Do you now? **_Lyra began to giggle. **_Oh yes, I've seen your plans as they've come out of your mind, though I don't understand most of it. You're going to show your friends your little... invention. Do you think it will convince them of what you've done? Where you've been? _**

_How else would you have me convince them?_

_**Show me to them.**_

_Are you kidding? We don't have the eco to spare right now, and once we do... _

_**What? **_The animal now sounded irritated.

_I don't trust you not to kill them. I agreed to release you regularly... in some lonely place where no one will see. A wooded thicket, with animal life, but no people. Abandoned places. _

_**You plan to hide me to the best of your ability. You don't want them to see. **_

There was no understanding. No, the animal accused.

_No. I don't. _

The beast snorted, but had no answer. Instead, she took to the task Loor suggested; picking through her memories to better understand Loor's home.

Lauren, on the other hand, lifted the phone in her hand to dial up another one of her friends, once again falling back on her bed.

It only rang once this time.

"Alex." Loor took a small smile. "Have any strange dreams last night?"

* * *

She'd been right.

After calling and confirming that Alex had a similar dream to Damian's she began to dig up the numbers of other close friends. Other people her family would have called in the case of such a strange and terrible event. Steven, Adam, and Sigourney all reported similarly. Dad had come home by the time she was done with everyone, coming down to call dinner through her door.

As always she reported for family dinner, sitting down and not taking much part in conversation as her parents discussed her father's day over what were always delicious smells of appetizing food. She served herself, but barely had the attention-span to eat. It was only the fact that she knew she needed it that forced her hand to work with a fork and knife.

It was only once she'd started that she cleared her plate faster than she'd ever give herself credit for. She was lucky her father always cooked for an army, because she was soon quite happily stuffing her face, questioning on where her elder sister, Ann, was.

"Working late." Was Mom's answer. "Tomorrow night too. She keeps picking up the shifts no one wants."

"Would it be okay if I had a few friends over tomorrow night?" Lauren was reminded of her obligation to ask permission. "Alex, Chelsea, and Damian."

"Damian won't be spending the night, will he?" Mom asked sternly, giving her daughter a look. Not 'the look' but certainly a look.

"Actually... I was thinking we could set up the guest room for him. If that's okay. If not, I'll try and convince Ann to drive him home when she gets home from work."

"Let him stay the night." Dad said with a cheery tone. "They gonna be early enough for dinner?"

"Should be." Loor looked between the two adults. She'd need Mom's blessing before Damian was cool for the whole night. "Please? We've had him stay the night before."

Mom sighed at being outnumbered, finally nodding and giving in. "Oh, alright." She said with an over-dramatic flourish of her hand. "But you kids had better not be up when _I_ get home at two in the morning, or I'll bring out the cattle prod."

"Mom!" She couldn't help complaining. "Have we ever screwed it up before?"

"No." Mom shrugged. "But it's never too late for the other shoe to drop. I'm still waiting for it to happen with Ann."

* * *

**The Author's Corner**

MEOW. I feel like I'm kinda building tension... you guys all _know_ something's gonna happen, but I'm trying to lay down all the framework so when it _does_ happen it has the proper effect.

Next time, punks.

-Loor


	5. Demonstration

**Disclaimer: I don't own the concepts of eco, Jak, Daxter, or any other copy-written item mentioned in this work of fan-fiction. **

**Vacation or War- Return  
****Chapter Five- Demonstration**

Everyone arrived sometime around noon the next day, Damian being the last to show up with his part of the demo set-up; the meter-tall stand that would be Loor's set-point for measuring. That item was hidden for the time being; Ann and Mom were both home still, people Loor didn't want getting into her business at the moment if she could at all help it. The stand was tucked away in the lowest level of the house, an area used almost exclusively for storage, before the four friends spent the day doing what they would usually do.

They started in the living room on the upper floor, kicking back and watching a movie they all knew so they could talk and joke through most of it. When dad came home later they vacated the upper floor and went downstairs to where the gaming stuff was. Loor offered to plug in the splitter so they could all play Champions of Norath on the PS2, but Chelsea and Alex declined to sit back and do whatever fit their fancy as Loor and Damian played.

Whatever fit their fancy eventually turned into playing with Loor's cat, Bojo. The fat and fluffy feline had been following the group of teens as they went from activity to activity, constantly seeking out a lap to curl up in. Alex's lap was supplied first, but forgotten when Fury decided it was high time to find one of the cat's toys.

Still, all of this was done within a somewhat tense atmosphere. The whole group knew there was something up with Loor; they were here for more than a little demonstration. It was clear the device had done something unexpected, or Loor would have been teasing them the whole time with hints and little explanations. Instead, the girl was looking for any general distraction Damian tired to ask about it a few times, only for her to ignore him by pretending she was too zoned out playing the game, even though they all knew Champions of Norath was a game that required very little of one's attention.

It was a sigh of relief when dinner was called; they were one step closer to the big moment of the night. All they were waiting for was all of the attending adults to be gone; Loor's elder sister Ann took off for work after the meal as her father went upstairs to watch TV and sort laundry with Mom. Again the youngers tucked themselves into the lower level, everyone noticing as Mom went to work and the upper level grew quiet and dark.

It was almost time. Games were shut down and the cat left alone as the platform was brought back up from the lower level. As Loor requested, it was rigged so there was wiring running up one side. The end on the platform would easily fit into the VC-M1's current configuration. The other could be plugged into a regular power outlet.

Or an extension cord leading to one.

The others moved the platform outside, taking it several feet from the house and plugging it into a cord that Loor already had set out and ready. It was an orange extension cord with it's own breaker in case something went wacky; she didn't want anything effecting the house. If the current ran back and caused a power surge she'd be discovered and screwed. Worse if something started on fire.

Lauren, on the other hand, moved to her room to get the device from where she'd thrown it before visiting Chelsea.

As expected, it was unharmed. The box had protected it. As she removed it from the padded package, she had to stare. This device; this troublesome device had caused all of this havoc in combination with the converter. It was the same size of her hand, and yet it had been the starting domino in the end of her old life. It looked like nothing more than a silver ball the size of a small apple in the middle of a custom-shaped board of silicon and special circuitry meant for liquid energy rather than plasma.

The fruit of a year's labor. Math and theories on electrons, magnets, and energy come together in a simple design.

She removed it from the board; all she needed was the main mechanism. That was the important part. Alone, it looked like a silver ball with a single seam around it's equator, a single hole that had been linked to the board that was the output, a small indentation at the top to hook the electrical supply into.

With reverence, she carried it outside. The others were waiting for her, faces thrown into sharp relief by the light that hung above the deck on the back of the house. There was a cement pad just a few feet away from the house that could have been a foundation for a shed of some kind, but nothing had ever been put on top of it. That made it an ideal flat surface with no building on top to burn.

"You guys are going to want to back up a bit." Loor said as she came out. "I do _not_ want any of you getting caught up in... in what it does."

"How far?" Alex asked, bouncing a little. Excitement made her hyper. "I still wanna be able to see!"

"Take it easy..." Loor sighed, feeling as if she wasn't being taken seriously. "I... I'm not exactly sure how far the effects reach. Let's just assume..." She pointed, indicating a spot about ten feet away. "That'll be okay, I think."

Damian was the first to move, trusting Loor when it came to electronics. Alex didn't want to, but followed once Chelsea went after Damian.

Loor felt her heart drumming in her ears as she put the device on top of the stand. Once she hooked it in it would begin to work, and she'd need to get away from it. If her memory served her it had taken a minute, perhaps two, for the converter to react to eco being produced... but she didn't want to risk anything on getting caught in it again. If all went as planned, they would witness the event rather than getting dragged along with it.

That was the idea. She had to show them that there was more than energy going on. She'd conduct the second test, dig up the converter itself so there would be hard proof that she wasn't going insane, and they'd all have to believe her and help her hide it. She would explain it to them, but only when they understood the need for complete secrecy.

In honesty she didn't have much reason not to trust them, they were her friends, but at the same time she knew they were all kids with parents that would try and poke their noses in at the least opportune moments.

The only up side, she noted, was they were all only children.

She took hold of the electric feed, plugging it into the device.

The plan had been to move away quickly after that, but the moment the device had power she knew the conversion was taking place. In a delicious and painful moment, she could feel the eco energy that was being produced. It bathed her hand in heat, old pins and needles which she craved with an addict's obsession coursing up her spine and making her stare at the little silver orb.

She needed to get away or risk getting thrown into the future once more, but it killed her to tear away. She wanted to stall, just long enough for the output to start dribbling. She could feel it, but without contact she hadn't adsorbed any.

She wanted it.

"Loor!" Damian's voice, with some alarm, broke her out of her stupor. Of course, the boy assumed she told them all to stand back because it was going to explode, or something else dangerous and spectacular, but his call brought her back to earth all the same. Suddenly realizing what was going on, she dropped the device on the platform and ran to join her friends, letting a small cry out as she felt the energy being used.

Something else, other than her, had taken the energy and was now causing the event. She looked back just in time to see that the device itself was beginning to fall apart as eco was produced, not a resilient enough material to stand up to the dark substance, the wood of the platform burning as well as purple sparks began to rise up out of the thick ooze. Static rose, casing an eerie light.

Everyone jumped a little as, similar to a bolt of lightening, the sparks became a single line that struck a line to the ground. Tripping over themselves to get away from it, because that line had been straight at them, towards the south end of the yard. Alex and Fury were holding each other, and Damian had caught Loor on her wild run away from the device.

Everyone stared at the platform, afraid to come back in case the light show started up again, but that was impossible.

The device was gone.

Loor was the first to return, checking the platform and the cement below for any sort of residue. In her brief contact she'd been able to gauge her own eco supply, realizing she was on the low end of things. In a few days, she would begin feeling the fatigue, a few more before muscular weakness and her brain misfiring. She could imagine two weeks on her steady decline before she'd need a new source or she'd be bedridden. In the back of her head she prayed that the platform would have something left on it, a drop or two still burning the wood, but there was nothing to sate her craving. Just a smoking mark.

She turned slightly to see that there was a similar mark on the ground; no fire had started but part of the lawn was certainly scorched from being in the way of the converter using the eco the VC-M1 had produced. Her math could begin.

Her friends joined her at the platform, shaken and confused.

"Where did it go?" Alex asked, all of her happy energy drained. "Did it... it didn't blow up... where did it...?"

"_When_ did it go." Loor corrected, shaking her head a little.

"Loor, that goop it was producing, the sparks." Damian frowned. "I wanna say I've seen it before, but it feels too stupid to suggest."

"Really?" Loor turned on him. Damian was the one who had introduced her to Jak and Daxter. Her copy of the first game was borrowed from Alex, but he was the one that first got her into it. He had all three and was a spoiler machine if allowed to speak at length, but she expected he would put things together first. "What if I told you that dream you had last night wasn't a dream? It was the aftermath of this happening inside Chelsea's home when I took the VC-M1 to test in her game console?"

"You had a dream too?" Alex asked, looking around quickly.

"I did too." Fury reported. "But... Loor..."

"It's okay." Loor made eye contact with all of her friends. "Those dreams... are of what we've managed to get out of. I understand you keeping it to yourself, Fury. You landed in the fortress and were kept as a prisoner for a while. I was put out immediately... don't remember a damn thing."

"What are you guys talking about?" Alex whined, not as good as putting things together was Damian was. "'Landed'? What's going on?"

"My device, the VC-M1, was designed to take electrical energy and convert it into a liquid. That liquid-"

"Loor, that's impossible." Damian broke in. "It... it's just not possible! It's a _game._ Some _fantasy_ some developers made for amusement."

"Or it's a story someone came back and told, but it was too incredible to accept as reality." Loor batted back. She had planed to save the explanation for later, but couldn't help herself. "I've been there, I've seen it. And the mind-boggling part? It's not another world. It's our future."

Everyone began to clamor with questions, even Fury became assertive enough to raise her voice and ask what the hell was going on. Despite herself, Loor put up her hands and decided she'd have to trust them.

"Okay, okay, take it easy. You guys go inside; I need to do some stuff with this thing before I put it away. Damian, you can scratch the second platform. I thought this one was going to be destroyed in this demonstration, but oh well. I'll get my data from this test, and meet you guys inside. And then I'll explain _everything." _

* * *

Loor had lied when she said 'everything.' She told them everything that she felt was relevant. The adventure, the connection between the two times, Fury's death... and about the eco that was in her blood. She even pricked one of her fingers to show the dark purple blood to them, getting reactions of wonder from pretty much everyone.

Fury was rather upset with the whole thing, but Damian and Alex were amazed. Still somewhat skeptical, but amazed. Fury didn't have a skeptical bone in her body; she had lived the transfer in her dream, and had likely seen more of the world on the other side than she ever cared to... and she was going to see more as her dreams went on. To know that these nightmares would lead to a bloody end was terrifying to her.

But Loor had re-routed history so she didn't have to die. Not for real.

The parts that Loor left out were the emotional things. The meaningless stuff, as she considered it, that really played no part in the facts of the matter.

"So the goal is to locate and destroy the converter in this area." She concluded. "Once I do, I'll be able to use the VC-M1 to make eco for myself and survive... At least for longer than originally expected. I'll have to somehow get the set-up to another location tomorrow. The mark here was pointing nearly due-south, so I'll wanna go west or east a few miles for the second one. If... if any of you wanna help, that would be great."

"I'm in." Damian volunteered at once. "Mom'll drive us just about anywhere."

"I wanna see that thing do it again." Alex piped up. "I donno about all the other stuff, but I wanna watch."

"Fury?" Loor turned her eyes on her last friend. The mousey-faced girl was quite shell-shocked, pale face blank as she stared at the table.

"I..." She blinked a few times, looking up at the others. "I don't understand what's going on at all... but I'll help if I can. I... no-one wants to die."

Loor had been pacing around the kitchen table as she explained thing. Now, as all of her friends agreed to assist her, she sat down between Fury and Damian. "Thank you guys... I could probably do it alone, but the faster I get this done..."

"We get it." Damian nodded quickly, patting her on the back.

"All I wanted was to get back to normal..." She grumbled, slouching over the table and then perking up and looking back into the kitchen. There was a digital clock on the oven that told them they were getting close to ten at night; Ann was due home in an hour or two, and if she found the kids still awake they were in big trouble. "We should pack it up and head to bed, guys... The less complications I can get from adults, the better."

Fury and Alex didn't argue this time, both departing for the places they'd picked before in Loor's room. It was more than likely at least two of the three girls would be up all night talking, but that was because Loor's house always fostered conversation for some reason. At the other girls' homes staying up till an ungodly hour was usually fault of TV or something found in the internet, but at Loor's house it was always because they were talking and getting too wound up to sleep.

Loor hesitated to join her friends. She stayed at the table, trying to find the motivation to get up and join them. She was worried about Fury; it was clear when they'd met on the other side that the girl had undergone something traumatic. She worried her little sister would end up regaining memories that would rip away her innocence, effectively destroying the girl she knew as her little sister.

She wished she could make it stop for her... but that was impossible.

"Is that really everything?" Damian asked, the other one who had hesitated to go to bed; he was upstairs in the guest room.

"Everything you guys need to know." She answered, putting her head down on her arms, which were crossed on top of the table. "A lot happened... I was there for about a month, including the time I don't remember in the fortress."

"So what's Jak like?"

"He's..." She forced a shrug. "Every bit the hero I thought it was... but still a teenager. When there was something to be done, he did it... but he also had his own interests in mind. He was also... a great friend."

Damian noticed his friend's tight face; she was upset, but doing her damnedest to hide it.

"You guys get close?"

"You could say that." She conceded, nodding a little. "But that doesn't matter. You know I don't care about that stuff." She then stood up from the table, her motivation to move being to get away from the current subject. "Go to bed, man. We got shit to do tomorrow."

Damian remained on the main level to watch her descend the stairs, as if he was worried she'd fall down them. It wasn't until he heard her door close that he moved to go upstairs and go to bed.

* * *

**The Author's Corner**

Loor and her big mouth... she's not good at keeping it shut unless there's universe-ending cataclysm breathing down her neck for it. XDD

So Loor's keyboard is dying... there might be some delay as she gets a new one. Ergonomic baby!

-Loor


	6. Blind Test

**Disclaimer: I don't own Jak or the concept of eco.**

**Vacation or War- Return  
****Chapter Six- Blind Test**

It was nearly one in the morning before Loor dared to sleep. She'd come to her room, stepping over the already sleeping Fury and doing her best not to disturb Alex, who was on the edge of dozing. Their silence was strange, but a blessing to her as she set up at her computer and entered in the data she'd collected from the test; her first triangle had been constructed. Sitting there she'd began to puzzle what she'd do when she had the data for the second location, realizing she had to compensate for different elevations in order to get an accurate location. The converter was only about the size of a small end-table, so it would be easy to miss if her numbers were even a little bit off.

So she'd left her room again to get on the other computer, the family computer, and look up an elevation map of her town and surrounding areas. She'd brought her USB with her, saving the map to the device to bring it over to her own computer in her room, which she'd decided not to connect to the internet for paranoia's sake of viruses and cyber thieves stealing things as she browsed the world wide web.

Once all the work was done she had trouble keeping her eyes open. She'd been awake for two days, refusing rest for as long as she possibly could. Some of it was that she felt she had too much stuff to do.

The other part was she was afraid to dream.

She noted her two friends, both sleeping quite soundly. Her own pillows were not even a foot away, inviting as could be.

She sighed, getting up so she could go to the bathroom and take out the contacts that had been disusing her eye color since she'd come home. Once they were safely in their case and coated with solution she tucked them away in one of the drawers, returning to her room and flopping back on her bed. Her cat, having been sleeping in a laundry basket near the door, suddenly got up and darted in before she shut the door, joining her on her bed and mewing plaintively. He seemed to know that something was wrong.

With both of her friends asleep, she spoke to her cat. Bojo was actually quite the good listener, his big yellow eyes watching her in the darkness, sitting on her stomach as she told him about all the stuff she hadn't seen fit to tell her friends.

The fact that she'd left behind more than torture and war. She'd left behind new friends, and perhaps someone she would have liked to love, had she let herself.

But, according to her, she was saving the world in her own little way but leaving.

It didn't matter that he didn't talk aback to her. When she was done talking he got up and nuzzled her before hopping down and curling up next to Alex, who had always been a animal magnet.

Staring at the ceiling a moment more, she finally rolled over to fall asleep. It wasn't far away; she was too exhausted to avoid it. Falling into her own head was inevitable as well, but it was nothing more than a comforting place to hide her from the world. She went from sleeping upon her bed to laying out in a massive pile of pillows and silken blankets, stretching and settling into the warmth before she fell even deeper into her subconscious.

She didn't realize that Lyra was sitting on the same pile of blankets, just above her head, standing guard against nightmares.

Her host needed to sleep. Even she could see that.

* * *

Getting to a second location for testing was tricky, but not impossible. Damian had friends all over the place, so all Lauren had to do was specify a location and he was able to start making calls to see who would be free that night. While he figured out who was free, Loor went to her mother and asked permission to leave the house for a night, such permission granted as long as she was back early enough to get a decent amount of sleep before church on Sunday.

Chelsea and Alex were not so lucky; their parents demanded them home, coming to pick them up over the next two hours.

Maria, Damian's mother, came to pick the two of them up while Mom was napping, Ann in her room and Dad away at work, making it easy work to smuggle the platform out of the basement without question. Maria didn't ask when Loor brought strange things over to the house; she and Damian were always up to something. Their first stop was back at Damian's house; they needed to pick a few things up.

Actually, just one. Loor may have been the brainy one, but Damian was pretty smart himself and always kept in the loop with her projects. Whenever she made a prototype, she made two so he always had a copy for study. When things went wrong, they'd bounce ideas off each other on how to fix it. Now that it was realized that previous prototypes failed simply because of the stupid box Loor tested them in, she had at least four extra versions of the VC-M1 that would be fully functional for her purposes.

Copies of the ones that had melted themselves in a dry box, overloading on heat and unable to do the conversion without a few molecules of hydrogen floating about in the air. Damian kept them all safe in their own black protective boxes, tucked behind the game collection in his room, hiding in plain sight since to the uneducated eye they could have just been really funny-shaped game cartridges for one of the old-school systems. Loor looked through quickly, taking one of the older versions that was bulkier, the layers of the silver center-piece thicker. After checking inside the black padded box and confirming it, she and Damian went back out to where Maria had the vehicle still running.

Damian's mother drove a large black truck, the two kids sitting in the back as she drove with the windows down and the radio up. This made a more than effective sound-barrier for them to talk without notice.

"So who did you get?" Loor asked, holding the box in her lap. Maria hadn't taken a second glance at it.

"Steven." He replied quietly, though there was a wince in his voice.

"_Steven?"_ She repeated, shaking her head with a sigh. "Great... that's just a topper to my week, dealing with that kid."

"You really that worried? I mean... all the stuff you told us you did... after metal heads and facing down Kor, he should be child's play."

She thought about that for a moment before laughing at herself and nodding. "Good point... I guess I'm just still sore about what happened between us."

The drive was about fifteen minuets as Maria took them nearly due-east from the town of Kingston. Steven lived way out in the boonies, and Loor wasn't sure exactly where he was within whatever city limits... she just knew that she went to school with the guy, and there had been a few messy episodes between the two of them.

Steven was a grade A flirt. Also a techy and a pothead, and a year older, but ultimately a flirt. Loor hadn't seen him since summer break started, and she was quite glad for it, since he was bigger than her and also, as much as she hated to admit it, stronger. She wasn't sure if that was still true, yet to test her physical strength since her return, but she wasn't nervous as they pulled up at his house.

No, she felt confident. She wasn't the clueless little girl she'd been when she last saw him. Getting out of the truck and unloading the platform, they waved Maria goodbye and decided that ten at night would be a good time for her to come back and pick them up again.

Looking up at the modest two-level home, surrounded by trees with a gravel drive, memories came into Lauren's mind. Memories she'd tried to disown for some time.

_**Oh my... and I thought you were just dirty-minded. I didn't know you had a little experience to go with it. **_

_Shut up... it can hardly be called experience. A few touchy moments, some late nights on the phone... nothing more. _

"You ready?" Damian asked, carrying the stand. He saw her hesitating.

"Let's move." She answered, taking the lead and standing as straight as possible. Dressed in a black sleeveless and jeans, she knew she looked dangerous when she tensed the muscles in her shoulders. More than that, she knew how to throw a proper punch that would knock Steven for a loop if he tried anything cute for 'old times sake.' Taking long and aggressive strides, she made it to the door several paces in front of Damian, knocking on the door.

It was only a moment's pause before it swung open. On the other side was a tall boy with tan skin and short black hair. He had a sweet face, with the brown eyes that had gotten Loor crushing on him in the first place half-way through seventh grade. Still, she knew better now. Inside, he was deviant with wandering hands.

"Lauren." He greeted with an easy smile. She noticed his braces were gone, a change since the last time she'd seen him. "You two got a little experiment you wanted to run?" He asked.

"Gathering data." She answered with a nod. "Anyone home, other than you?"

"Nope." He answered while standing aside to let them in. "Gran's gonna be home later, but her and Dad are out doing errands right now."

"How much later?" Loor demanded as she entered, her nose flaring. She forgot that Steven wasn't alone in his drug habits; the whole house smelled of it. His father even grew some of his own. She supposed it wasn't so bad, seeing as pot was far from the most damaging drug in the world, it was just the problem of legality that stopped her from ever wanting to try it... and the smell made her a little dizzy.

"Hour, maybe two." He answered with a shrug. "What, you two trying to get a little alone time?" He teased with a grin. "I didn't hear that you'd gotten back together."

"We haven't." Damian said before Loor could dig in with the threats. "We don't want any adults knowing about this little project... or any other unnecessary additions to the loop."

"_Oooh." _Steven shrugged. "I gotcha, I gotcha. So what made me necessary?"

"Location." Loor answered coldly, looking across the entry way which was connected to a living room, a glass sliding door leading to the back yard. "We'll set this up out there and get it out of the way. Steven, you sober?"

"Look at me, Lauren." He laughed. "You're smart, you should be able to tell without asking."

She raised an eyebrow at him before rolling her eyes. "Right, open the door then. Damian, were the wires on the platform damaged during last night's demo? I didn't check them."

Steven trotted ahead as he was told, opening the sliding door as Loor led the way into the back yard; an untamed mess with a small vegetable garden off to the right. Damian was following, looking at the connection at the top as he walked. "Singed, but not melted. Should be okay."

"Wonderful." She then looked back at Steven, who was still by the door and innocently smiling. "Any chance I can get you not to watch what we're about to do?"

"You'd have to ask nicely." He batted back with a smirk and a wink. "Or you could try to tempt me."

She growled softly, but more at Lyra than him. The animal in her rather liked his antics. His baby-face also made her feel that he'd be easily dominated and toyed with. "The less people know about this, the better. It's dangerous. Be serious for once in your life."

He blinked, confused that Loor had used such a tone on him. He was used to the girl being tongue-tied, all but for the single out-burst she'd had at him that had ended what they had called a relationship... but it was clear after that she still thought he was very cute. Now she glared as if he were nothing more than a slug.

"I'll be up in my room. You guys come hang out when you're done."

Damian whistled, laughing slightly. "Jeez... gonna rip his head off? Mom could use the hood-ornament."

She turned, still radiating angry energy and glaring. "Just hook up the extension cord. There's an outlet by the door."

* * *

Damian and Steven had stretched out on the kid's bed, talking about things Loor didn't care to listen to as she commandeered Steven's computer. Like her, she had his PC in his room. Plugging her USB in she was able to get started on her calculations that would lead her to the location of the converter.

The event with the VC-M1 had gone exactly as it had the night before, despite the slight difference in the mechanism. The platform, no longer needed, was expertly scrapped by the two of them and left scattered about the long and wild grass of Steven's back yard. Before that Loor had taken her measurements, another burn mark pointing mostly south being produced. With the two triangles and her elevation map she was able to figure the rest through problem solving.

The first part was to plot the two test locations on a map and the exact direction that their burn 'point' had appeared in the ground. From there she just had to extend the lines until they intersected. That would give her the location she needed.

She had to blink a few times once the lines were drawn, staring at the map she'd saved into her USB.

"It's almost under Minneapolis... who the fuck would ever guess?" She questioned, staring at the computer screen.

"What?" Damian broke out of his conversation with Steven, perking up at once. "Really? That's going to make getting to it pretty difficult, with lots of people passing by all the time."

"Just a second." She muttered, marking the location and then opening up Internet Explorer to get a closer map of the Twin City area. "If it's under something with a basement some of the work might already be done for me."

"If it's under a building you'll have to get into that building, and probably destroy part of the basement, without being noticed."

Steven had dared to approach by now. "What the hell are you guys doing?"

Loor quickly saved and closed everything. The reminder of the unwanted extra kept her from finishing her calculations.

She could do it all when she got home. For the moment she disconnected her USB and turned in the chair to smile an evil smile at Steven. "None of your business." She assured, an unspoken threat in her voice.

"Jeez, when did _you_ get to be such a ball buster?" He asked, backing off again.

She didn't answer that question, simply getting up and pocketing her storage device. They had several hours until Damian's mother showed up to pick them up again, and she couldn't wait to get the hell out of there.

Once she got home she'd find out where the converter was hiding, how deep under the ground it was... and make a plan to get at it.

Nothing would stop her now.

* * *

**The Author's Corner**

Jeez, you're an impatient bunch, ain'tcha? Rest assured, I haven't forgotten about Jakkie boy, but one of the major flaws of this book was putting him in WAY too early.

And before you guys get worried that this book is gonna be as crazy long as the first one was, realize this is gonna be more of an intermission than a book. I'm thinking thirty chapters. Tops. But MEOW.

Good god I'm really getting pissed with my keyboard... the 'g' key hates me, 'e' almost doesn't work at all, and 't' is starting to go... BLARG!

-Loor


	7. Mind over Matter

**I do not own Jak and Daxter or the concept of eco.**

**Vacation or War- Return  
****Chapter Seven- Mind Over Matter**

"Yeah, it's fine, I got it all figured out."

"_Really? Where is it?"_

"Nearly directly under the Mall of America, if you can freakin' believe that."

"_Wow... they really know how to pick a location, huh?" _

"I imagine they knew where the majorly populated areas were going to be... this is the precursors we're talking about here."

"_So, how are you going to get to it?" _

"The parking garages have access halls underground... that'll get me close. It shouldn't be that far under the foundation of the place, maybe fifty, sixty feet? I can get in. I've hacked government servers before, the security net at MOA should be easy."

"_You sure you won't need any more help?"_

"I promise. Thanks for all you've done for me already. We'll celebrate sometime after school's started, alright?"

"_Sounds awesome, Loor. So... I'll talk to you later?"_

"Great. Bye man."

"_Take care of yourself, eco freak." _

"Hey, watch it!"

Lauren had laughed as she hung up the phone, but that laughter cut short the moment she got off the line. Damian was the last of those she'd needed to call and assure that she had everything taken care of.

But she had lied to all of them.

She looked back to her computer, where she'd finished her calculations of just how deep underground the converter would be. She hadn't lied about the location; it was indeed somewhere underneath the Mall of America, just beyond the airport and next-door to the hotel district in Minneapolis.

Several hundred feet under MOA.

_**So what's plan B? **_

_There is no plan B. That was it._ Loor felt like snarling, but all she could do was pace back and forth in her room, restless and feeling like she was losing her mind. There was no way she could get to the converter; it took construction companies and mining operations months to get that deep underground, and she was just one kid with less than a month to do the same without any tools or machines. The feat was simply impossible, forgetting the fact that it was underneath a famous location that would make the ground under it nearly inaccessible. _Don't you get it? There's nothing I can do. We're going to die._

There was silence in her head at those words. In full contact with Lyra, Loor could feel the beast's emotions. She started in shock but moved on to rage. _**So we came back here to die. We came through a war and more to just crawl off in to a corner and die. **_

_Basically._ Loor had no argument for the animal. _When we start getting too weak to function, I'd ask that you use up the remaining eco and make the last moments pass quickly. _

**_No._**Lyra answered. **_Go back. Your plan failed, but your friend has more of your devices. Go back to Haven. I refuse to die._**

_And I refuse to get mixed up in another adventure! _Loor whipped around in her pacing, punching her wall and gasping slightly at the exhilaration of the release. _Going back to Haven... why the hell would I? I may live another few years until you kill me anyway, the taint and the insanity. I'd rather get it over with in a few weeks. We're too low... I doubt we'll even make the beginning of school before I'm bedridden. Maybe Labor Day weekend-_

An idea struck her. Lyra caught it, and hissed in disapproval.

_**You cannot force me out, no more than I can take control of you without breaking completely free. Neither of us are puppets on strings. I will not help you kill us both. **_

_But it's perfect... Mom and Dad leave for three days over labor day weekend. I'll be able to disappear, and no one will have a clue where I've gone by the time someone who cares can be notified. It's best for everyone. I can finally end this nightmare... once and for all._

Lyra didn't answer her; any further exertion of her opinion would have a cost in eco... eco which was too precious to waste.

* * *

Fury had taken to journaling.

It was the only way she was comfortable telling about her dreams, writing out the events as they happened every night. At first she'd considered telling Loor, but the girl wasn't completely sure she wanted to share these nocturnal episodes with her adoptive sister.

No, she was living an adventure all her own, seeing the world beyond the TV screen coming to life in her mind. Lauren seemed burdened enough by her own thoughts and memories, the girl didn't need Chelsea's plight piled on top. Even after Loor called her and told her the whole issue with the converter was taken care of, she didn't feel right telling her sister.

So instead she wrote everything into journals. Every dream, every detail she could remember. She'd been taken on a ride into the future, and ended up in the fortress to be made a prisoner. Her body had been tested in every way; almost every dream she found herself in starting in a medical lab of some kind, or having just come back from one. There was something different about her, and _they_ wanted to know.

And then there was one of the guards. She could remember him; his name was Artimus. He wanted to get her out of the fortress; he didn't think it was right that she'd been taken prisoner just because she was an unknown person. He didn't like anything that happened inside the walls.

She began to spend more of her day sleeping than awake. It was after the third night, the first time she'd fallen asleep with the thought that it was all real going through her head, that she began to keep a journal of the events. Before she'd woken from the strange episodes and tried to forget, but now she wanted to remember and cursed herself as her recollection of some events grew fuzzy.

Each time she found herself a little less afraid as she laid down. She knew where she was going, and though she was well-aware that it was a place of suffering and torture... she knew it was not where she met her end.

Lauren had told her they escaped. They got out and into Haven City proper before she'd met her own bloody end... but for some reason she wasn't afraid of that anymore. She didn't panic when she woke up, escaping the cell she'd been kept in while within the Baron's prison. It wasn't that what she was going through wasn't horrifying, it most certainly was... but it was the experience that hardened her against what was her usual reaction.

She was losing her innocence, her fearful outlook on the world. There was no room for paranoia when action was to be taken. That was what she was learning. Her waking hours began to exist simply to support the dreams, barely rising out of her bed more than she had to, desperate to learn more of what was both her past and at the same time... not.

Animus's bitter attempts to save her would be burned into her memory, no matter what.

During this time of subconscious obsession, Fury was contacted by the outside world a grand total of twice. The first was Loor's announcement to everyone that everything was going to be okay, thanking everyone for their help. The second was Alex, wondering if anyone had heard about Loor planning a birthday party; the girl was turning thirteen soon and hadn't told anyone any real plans.

Fury, honestly, didn't know or care. She was buried in a horrific and fantastic past. Or perhaps it was a future.

She'd go back to sleep. She'd see more, learn more. She almost wished to forsake this reality for the one that lived in her dreams.

She'd go back to sleep.

She didn't want to wake up.

* * *

Loor had originally taken a day with Alex to dye her hair; the growth spurt had hit her and with the rapid aging came the sudden change in her hair color. In the first day or two it hadn't been all that noticeable, but at the same time that the girl's appetite went through the roof, so did her body's metabolic rates. Only a week at home, and she'd grown several inches taller, the roots of her hair turning black, and put on a cup size. Her body was maturing at a startling rate. Still, the girls decided it would be less conspicuous to Loor's family if she just wore a hat for the time being and dyed her hair when school came along, making it easier to blame on peer pressure.

Loor didn't mention that she didn't plan on making that year of school.

The two hung out in the living room of Alex's home, a cozy room with a large TV and very comfortable, if not beat-up, furniture. It was still somewhat early in the morning, Loor deciding on a black fedora that they'd found in the closet as her hat of choice. Alex had been just about to ask about what Loor's plans were for her birthday, but the phone rang.

Being Alex's house, she got up and answered.

"Hello?" She said, picking up the cordless atop the TV, which was currently playing some old movie as background noise. "Oh, hey. Yeah, she's here." A pause. "Huh? What's going on?" Another pause; Loor sat up from where she'd been slouching on the couch.

The look on Alex's face said it all.

Something was wrong.

"Oh God... just this morning? Yeah, here, you can talk with her, I'm gonna go ask my parents if I can come along."

Alex handed the phone over to Lauren as she explained. "It's your mom. She just heard from Chelsea's mom; Chelsea's in the hospital."

"What?" Loor felt a hot burst of adrenaline. Honestly, with Fury's weak immune system, it wasn't surprising news. Chelsea ended up in the hospital once every few years from diseases that just took more out of her than the average person. Still, it was always a shock to hear a friend had gone into medical care out of the blue. "When?"

"Just this morning." Alex answered. "Your mom wants to go visit her. I'm gonna ask my parents if I can come with."

Loor nodded as Alex left the room, putting her ear to the phone. "Hello?"

"_Hey honey. Did Alex tell you?"_

"Yeah. What happened? She got the flu?"

"_We... that's just the thing. Katie called me; the doctors don't know what's wrong. From what it sounds like, Chelsea went to sleep last night and she just hasn't woken up. They can't figure out what's wrong... she just seems asleep." _

Katie was Fury's mother, ever the worry-wart, and the reason Fury saw a doctor for even the smallest issues.

"Is that what the doctors told her? She's just... asleep?"

"_That's all I know." _Mom answered. _"I'll be right over to get you guys. Has Alex found out if she can come along yet?" _

Loor looked up into the door way to find Alex waiting just outside, giving a quick nod when Loor raised her eyebrows in question.

"Yeah. It's all squared away. See you soon, Mom."

"_I love you baby... I hope this all turns out alright..."_

"Me too. Drive safe."

Loor hung up, handing the phone back to Alex and staring off. Just sleeping? If it was a comatose state the doctors would have said that and not tried to pretty up the verbiage at all. They knew Katie at the hospital, they wouldn't sugar coat it for the woman.

She'd just fallen asleep and hadn't woken up.

"She's dreaming." Loor said suddenly, staring blankly into space. It happened to be the same space that Alex was occupying, but that didn't matter much. Her eyes had no focus as her brain went to work. It had been a week since Loor had returned to this time. A week of Fury dreaming, going through memories of another time in her sleep.

And it was a week before she was entered into a glass tube of her own; joining Loor in the IV branch of the Dark Warrior Program. Sedated and left to float as blood was filtered through a giant dilation system, only instead of cleaning it was mixing eco in. Bit by bit, letting their bodies adjust and watching the transformation as their growth accelerated and their pigmentation changed.

"What?" Alex asked. "She's sleeping, so I guess she could be dreaming..."

"No." Loor shook her head, getting up from the couch. "The dream's overpowered her brain. She... Alex, I told you guys. Fury and I... when we went there... we were experiments. I went straight in, but Fury was left out for a week so they could do tests on her. Our genetic structure was different than everyone else's; they were trying to figure out _what_ we were, what was different. After a week, and next to no results aside from funny DNA markers, they put her in too... drugged up and sleeping in a tube, becoming a monster."

"A week?" Even Alex could put this one together. "And it's been... _oh._ Could it really...?"

"Fury's mind has always been over matter. She's paranoid, and with how attracted she is to ghosts and other things to do with the more ethereal plane of living, I wouldn't be surprised if what she _thought _was happening took over the conscious engine of her brain... not to mention those dreams... I wouldn't be surprised if she forgets she's dreaming when she's asleep. It has to feel real."

"So real that when she thinks she's drugged, she won't wake up?"

"Exactly." Loor agreed with a nod. "But it also means she won't stay under forever... She'll wake up in a week, exactly. That's when we both woke up and broke out."

"You ever figure out why you guys woke up at the same time?" Alex asked.

"Y'know, I never pondered it." Loor shrugged. "But I could wager a guess... I had a friend inside the fortress before I even knew where I was. Ryan... when I woke up and ended up bringing Errol down into the room to check on me personally, I'd bet anything Ryan cut Fury's sedation in hopes she would react... the way she did, and give us a chance to escape."

There was a brief moment of silence as Loor remembered the monster she'd seen in the fortress; it was almost a long forgotten event, but it still lived in her mind. White hair, black eyes, and a small set of horns to go with the tell-tale talons of a dark eco being. It had still been Fury, but at the same time... not. The same face, but most vile intentions.

"I never asked her about it." Loor lamented. "I was too busy... trying to take the lead... I shoved her out of my way trying to fix things."

"Loor, if she's gone under because of these dreams, will she start... growing? Like you?"

"She shouldn't." Loor answered quickly and without hesitation. "What's going on here is only a psychosomatic reaction to what she _thinks _is happening. I never thought the brain was _that _powerful, but hey... can't argue with the evidence."

Alex nodded, frowning slightly as the girls moved to from the living room to hang out by the front door and wait for Loor's mother.

She didn't ask the question of what would happen when Fury dreamed of her death.

* * *

**The Author's Corner**

DUN DUN DUN!

God I am a meanie. BUT I'm also doing my best to move things along, even though my keyboard gets less responsive each day. BLARG.

Love you all, thank you SOOOO MUCH for the reviews, you make the crazy author person very happy.

And a side note... recently started listening to The Crüxshadows, also known as CXS, again. The muse really likes them... I've had whole days of unbroken writing time where I didn't even think of distracting myself otherwise. Crazy pants.

MEOW!

-Loor


	8. Serenity

**Disclaimer: I do not own Jak and Daxter. **

**Vacation or War- Return  
****Chapter Eight- Serenity**

The first visit had been nothing short of depressing. Fury's pallid face peeking out of white sheets, laid on a white pillow, asleep but clearly dreaming. Her eyes darted back and forth in an unbroken REM cycle. She had a headband of electrodes, her hair pasted back by conductive gel and wires leading away to relay her brain activity to a bulky machine to the side of the bed. One hand was out with the pulse-clip on her index finger, the other arm above the covers for a sustaining IV to hook in on the inside of her elbow.

Loor knew the feeling of such needles, and shuddered at the sight. Worse things had happened to both girls on the other side, but this was a way she never liked to see her friend.

Alex turned white in the face, made quite speechless. Katie was by the bed, crying and quickly filling the trashcan with tissues. The woman made it clear where Fury got her mousey-facial structure from, and aside from being slightly crazy was still a very caring mother. Loor had no doubt that the woman would spend every spare moment at the hospital to look after her only daughter.

Loor's mother, who had driven them to the hospital, went to comfort Katie as Alex pulled up a chair. The three of them would talk, but Loor could do nothing but stand aside and stare.

Neither her or Alex had voiced the question, but Loor now grew extremely worried.

What would happened when Fury dreamed of her death? She'd bled out, something too physical for the brain to simulate... but the question remained. Would Fury go crazy? Would she fall into a comatose state?

Loor had no way to predict, and it drove her absolutely insane. She had returned to avoid things like this; to fix the future by changing her past. She was literally giving up her own life on the hope that it would improve things for those she'd left behind. Fury being alive again was an incredible thing, one of the reasons she'd been so happy she'd come back, and now that reason was looking rather shaky.

They didn't stay long; Mom dropped Alex at her house and took Loor back home at both girls' request. They wanted to worry on their own time. Loor took to her obsessive puzzling, but without more information she wouldn't be able to figure anything out. If it was something happening in her own head she'd know exactly what was going on and what to do about it, but it wasn't and she didn't.

So she decided to make regular visits as well. Her mother offered to drive her, but she decided on biking herself to and from the hospital; it was only four miles away, and the summer warmth made it an easy and almost pleasing jaunt.

For two days the visits were the same as the first when her friend first went into the hospital; she lay asleep. Katie wasn't there because she had work at the time Loor picked to visit, and that was something the girl did on purpose. She wanted to be alone with her adoptive sister, doing simple things like checking the readings on the various monitoring machinery they set on her. Everything read out the same; things were normal for a sleeping person; the only anomaly that she never dropped out of the REM cycle.

She was stuck in a dream state. Hyper relaxed and hypnotized by her own subconscious.

It was the third day that something different happened.

Loor had arrived after locking up her bike, getting a nod from the ladies at the front desk and going to the elevator up to the third floor; where Fury's room was. Loor had a backpack with her because she had a notebook where she'd been logging Fury's readings on every visit. The backpack also had a water bottle, since she _was_ biking in summer heat, but that wasn't the important part.

The important part was finding an inconsistency. Something that said that this event was something, either more or less, than a dream.

She arrived at the room just as she was drawing out her notebook and pen, pulling up a chair and starting a new page in her log. She'd stay a few hours to get a sizable sample of numbers, since a moment in time was hardly something she could call research... and without working at the hospital she wouldn't have access to the history. She wouldn't even try asking.

So every five minuets she copied out O2 stats, heart rate, and the wavelength on the monitor for brain activity. And, as visits previous, nothing really changed. O2 would go up or down one, or the heart rate would meander a beat or two per minute, but that was just expected inconsistency of an organic life-form.

Then, about an hour in to her monitoring, Fury's pulse spiked, as did respiration and brain function. It snapped Lauren to attention, standing up and looking down at Fury's sleeping face...

To find she wasn't sleeping anymore. Jade eyes had opened wide to stare up at the ceiling, gasping and crying, tears streaming suddenly and plentifully.

"Lauren!" She cried as some of the machines began to beep an alarm. "Oh my God... why didn't you... why didn't you tell me?"

"Tell you what?" Loor returned the question with a question, too surprised to do anything but react.

"The blood... Lauren... why didn't you... she... she's a monster... She... I... I killed him! I killed him!"

Memory struck her; things Fury had spoken about. There had been a KG within the Guard who had attempted to get Fury out by the name of Artimus. Fury had a break down similar to this when they'd first escaped; Artimus had removed her from the experiment and tried to get her out... but she'd panicked.

And released her other self.

"You didn't do it." Loor assured. "She did."

"She... she's a monster..." Fury whimpered, sobbing plentifully. "I don't want her... get her out of my head... she killed him... he was helping, and she killed him..."

Loor backed off for a moment, getting a tissue and cleaning her friend's face for her. "It's okay, Fury. It's all a dream, remember? It's... it's like it never happened. I promise."

Fury stared at the white ceiling, just not noting where she was. "A dream...? Have I been dreaming all these days...? But there's been nothing... a sweet smell... I can smell it again... they're going to put me back. Errol is going to make her stronger..."

Loor glanced to the monitor that was reading out brain activity. The wavelength was changing again; Fury was going under once more.

"No!" Loor snapped, giving her a rough shake. "Fight him! Don't let him!"

"She likes it..." Fury's tongue began to fumble, her words becoming less distinct. "Serenity..."

And with that, everything went normal again. Fury fell back into her dreams, leaving Loor with nothing but a name.

"Serenity..." She muttered, standing straight over the bed and only now realizing that the event had brought three nurses and one doctor into the room. They all stared at Loor, as if they expected her to be the one who knew something about what just happened, when they were the ones who were educated and entrusted with her care. She thought quickly about the exchange, what they probably saw. "I was trying to talk her back into reality." She said quickly, backing off. "I... I'm sorry."

She found herself booted from the room as a full examination was run on her sister, and decided that it would be best if she just went home after that.

The name still stuck. There was no question of whose name it was; Fury's darker self had named herself, likely in the same fashion that Lyra had decided a name for herself. Serenity was an odd choice, but so had been Lyra's choice of a name, so Loor didn't question.

It's not like the information did her any good. It was just a reminder of how inattentive she'd been when they'd escaped the fortress, so sure her own plans would get them home before they knew it.

Her plans never went the way she thought they would.

* * *

It was August twenty-eighth. Two weeks from when Loor had come home and retaken her old life. The day Fury was supposed to wake up again.

It was also Lauren's thirteenth birthday, though she hardly looked the part. She was still in her room, sitting in front of her bedroom mirror and staring at her reflection. She didn't have the contacts in, looking herself right in her purple and green eyes. The black roots of her hair had become too prominent to ignore, but the hat she'd gotten from Alex still covered them. She just had to keep it on. From there, her body looked like a girl on her sixteenth birthday, not her thirteenth. Stretch marks from here to Texas dotted every part of her body which had sprung ahead to match what the eco had done to her. Cup-size to hips, thighs to shoulders, she once again looked like she'd gotten into a very interesting fight with a bear.

Sighing, she donned a bra she'd stolen from her elder sister, slipping on a loose T-shirt and her night pants. It was the only things she had that still really fit. Underwear was also stolen from her sister, as embarrassing as the fact was. Thankfully, her family hadn't raised their eyebrows yet. At least, not to her face. She knew her mother would notice sooner or later when she realized her youngest daughter was now nearly as tall as her, and Ann had to custom order her bras at sixty dollars a pop; she was sure to notice when one went missing after a few loads of laundry. Thirty-Six D was a difficult size to find at WalMart.

Loor's ribcage was even smaller than her sister's. The borrowed undergarments fit her cup, but were still too big around. A moment with a measuring tape revealed her at a thirty-four. Still, some support was better than none.

She wasn't sure if Dad would notice... Dad kept his nose out of the estrogen-heavy part of the house for his own health's sake.

Putting her hat on and emerging from her room, Loor carefully glance back and forth before coming upstairs. For some reason, she felt very uneasy. She'd tried not to mention her birthday to anyone since the acceptance of the fact that she was on a slow spiral to the last few days of her life, hoping it would just pass under the radar.

But she knew better than that.

Her sister, Ann, was waiting at the top of the stairs to the main level, hugging her and nearly knocking her hat off.

"HAPPY BIRTHDAY!"

"Good morning..." Lauren grumbled from her sister's crushing grasp, patting her back. "Choking... not breathing..."

"Well, you're just a ray of sunshine." Ann teased while letting go. "You've kinda been hiding in your room a lot lately... don't tell me you're gonna go be a hermit for your whole birthday."

Loor left the stairwell to enter the kitchen and look for something to eat. She was insanely hungry, even though most of the growth was over with. "I am the birthday girl... figured I could do what I wanted."

"Awe... C'mon, I got the day off, and rumor has it Paul might be able to call home today."

Loor, who had stuck her head in the fridge by now, poked her nose back out to blink. Paul was her elder brother, who had taken off for National Guard basic training at the beginning of the summer. He'd been gone for months, so long that Loor could almost imagine she didn't have a big brother. Graduation would be just a few weeks into school.

Loor hadn't considered that she'd probably be dead before that event came around. She didn't have much hope left. As her sister noted, she wasn't leaving her room much because she was sleeping much more than usual. Her body was achy and didn't want to move. When she did get up she had violent mood-swings, her mind foggy and her muscles fatiguing easily. She hadn't gotten on her bike since the last time she'd been to visit Fury, when the girl had woken up. Half was because she thought she might be unwelcome, the other half being she didn't think she'd have the strength.

The effects of a shortage were beginning. She gave herself till the end of the week before she'd be bedridden.

These last days belonged to the people she loved.

She allowed herself to smile. "Sorry, I'm still wakin' up... Alright, alright, I won't go hide. But I reserve the right not to get dressed."

"Granted." Ann laughed while joining her younger sister in the kitchen, worming her arms around the smaller girl's stomach and giving her another squeeze. When Lauren didn't react, it was followed by tickling her ribs.

"_YIPE!" _Loor jumped away from the fridge and tried to yank away form her sister, successful after a few moments and hugging her own stomach. "Don't tickle me!"

"I didn't tickle you." Ann replied innocently, taking Lauren's place at the fridge to find her own breakfast.

"Did too!"

"Can't prove it. Innocent until proven guilty."

Lauren felt herself pouting, before she remembered her elder sister had a similar weakness about her ribs. She was jut about to take advantage of it when the phone rang. There was a cordless in the kitchen that Loor went and got at once, hoping either to hear from her brother or get news on Fury's condition.

It was the latter.

"Hello?"

"_Onee-san!" _Fury's voice came from the other side. She sounded jubilant. _"I didn't know we got out on your birthday! I feel like a bitch for not remembering." _

Loor felt a relived smile spreading on her face. She'd been afraid that Fury would never wake up, that the girl had effectively given herself over to a dream she'd never wake up from. "Thanks, _Imoto-chan._" She said with some sarcasm. "Well you remember now, so go ahead and say it."

"_HAPPY BIRTHDAY!" _

Loor had to pull the phone away from her ear for a moment, cleaning the ear with her pinky for a moment as she heard Fury laughing on the other side, and Alex. Bringing the phone back, she snickered along. "So, they letting you out now that you're awake and functional again?"

"_No... they wanna keep me for another day or two. They still have no idea what happened... and I sure as hell can't tell them... It's... it's been a hell of a ride though. Teek's home is beautiful... was she as nice as she seemed?"_

"A wonderful old lady." Loor answered, lowering her voice since she had her sister's attention. "Listen, can we talk about this later...? I..."

"_Come by the hospital." _Fury said easily. _"I wanna give you birthday hugs! Alex and Damian are here too. We can have our own little party." _

"Will there be cake?" She had to laugh a little. A birthday party in a hospital was something only her friends could come up with.

"_Screw cake, they got pie in the cafeteria downstairs." _

"Awesome. Always liked pie better anyways. I'll see you as soon as I can get a ride over."

"_Can't you just bike over?"_

"I... haven't been feeling that great lately. I think I'll play it safe and get a ride. Love you _imoto-chan. _See you soon. Say hi to the others for me."

"_You got it." _

Loor hung up the phone with mixed feelings. She didn't want to have a party. She didn't want to celebrate with people she was about to leave. But at the same time, it would be good to see them all one last time.

"What's going on?" Ann asked, having made a sandwich and gone to the table to eat.

"Fury's awake and has the rest of the group together... she wants me to come by so we can kinda have an impromptu birthday-party for me. Think you could drive me over?"

Ann nodded, smirking. "I hope they respect your right not to get dressed."

"Hey," Lauren couldn't help herself, laughing. "Birthday girl."

* * *

**The Author's Corner**

Good fucking GOD. Wrists. Pain. MEOW.

And no I'm NOT gonna spoil when Jakkie-boy shows up... that would ruin the suspense. JEEZ.

-Loor


	9. Gone Again

**Disclaimer: I do not own Jak and Daxter**

**Vacation or War- Return  
****Chapter Nine- Gone Again**

Exhaustion had come quickly when Loor spent time with her friends. It was great to see them all, gathered around Fury's bed at the hospital; talking and laughing like everything was normal, but she ran out of breath just trying to chat. She sat on Fury's bed, Alex and Damian right beside and the four of them talking about normal kid things. Who had they run into lately? Who were they looking forward to seeing again at school? Did any of them hear about how much trouble so-and-so got into?

And at first, it was warm and wonderful. Loor remembered what she'd been so desperate to get back; great friends, her wonderful family, and a home town where nearly everyone knew her name.

But in an hour or so, after Damian had run to the cafeteria in the lower level of the hospital and come back with the promised pie for them all, she was reminded that she would leave this as well. She was about to forsake them all. Labor day weekend was early this year, Monday being September first. Tomorrow her parents would pack up to go up to Michigan for the weekend and leave her alone in the house with her sister, who was gone nearly all the time because of her friends and work.

That realization made the whole event tasteless. Even sad.

"Lauren?"

Fury had been the first to notice that her mood had plummeted. One person's attention attracted all of them. They all looked to her, wanting to know that all was well, despite other-worldly things that had been happening.

She had a chance to tell them the truth. To tell them that she was dying and that there was nothing to be done about it. That she probably wouldn't survive the week, and if she had any luck at all she'd talk her darker self into euthanasia.

She put her paper plate down, forcing a smile at all of them. "Nothing, just getting buried in my head again."

"How so?" Damian asked, the first one to call bull shit whenever Loor tired to feed them a line.

"Well..." She needed a way to shift focus off of herself. Thankfully, there was a ready distraction for her that was an equally real worry. "Fury... you fell into this, right? There wasn't much you could do about it; your memories quite literally took you under."

"Yeah." Fury agreed, looking left and right to make sure no hospital staff was passing by as they spoke about her strange episode. "It wasn't that I didn't wanna wake up, it's that I _couldn't._ I'm kinda nervous to fall asleep next time, with what you told me happens."

Lauren nodded in agreement, feeling a tight frown take on her face. Fury had awoke from the dream of their escape, their first mission, and taking refuge in the underground.

Tonight, Fury would be sent on her own on a mission that she never returned from. She would successfully rescue Vin from the strip mine, only to be killed on the drill platform.

"They're just memories." Loor claimed, looking at Fury again to convince herself. The girl had grown no older, and blood samples had been taken from her recently. They'd been red. Nothing wrong, nothing changed about her. "After that, you should stop having these dreams. There's nothing to be afraid of..."

Everyone nodded, but worried all the same. They knew Loor had to say that; it was her job as the leader type to instill confidence in the rest of them, even when shit was hitting the fan.

"I'm not scared." Fury said, a smile on her face. "I can feel it... even if it's just memories, I know something changed about me when... when they put me in there. I'm ready for whatever happens."

That got shock from nearly everyone. Fury was infamous for worrying more than needed, but the smile she wore was one of comfort. It didn't really matter what happened that night; she was ready for it.

That smile gave confidence to the others. Where Loor's leadership had fallen short, Fury rallied their moral.

Hugs were shared between the friends as the time to go home came. Loor had a family waiting to do dinner, cake, and sing happy birthday. Alex and Damian also had things to be doing that summer's evening.

Fury, left alone as they all were picked up by their appropriate guardians, stared up at the ceiling.

Something in her knew what was going to happen. Just as Loor had been unable to escape her body's attachment to eco, this was something she wasn't able to escape either. There was no point in fighting, screaming or crying and saying it wasn't so.

She had to face it.

Artimus had taught her that.

Reaching to her bedside phone, she punched in her mother's work number.

"_Hello?"_

"Hey momma." Fury answered, still wearing that strange smile. As such a soft expression existed on her face, so did tears at the very brim of her eyes. "Did I call at a bad time?"

"_Oh, no baby. I just got a break, is everything alright? Do you need me to come by?"_

"Everything's fine, Mom. I just wanted call to say I love you before I went to bed."

"_I love you too baby. Wake up this time, okay?" _

"I'll do my best, momma. Have a good night."

"_I will. See you in the morning." _

The line hung up. Fury put the phone back and relaxed on her pillows once back. Just before she went under once more, she shook her head, blinking and allowing a few tears to slide down her cheeks.

"No." She said to the ceiling. "No you won't."

* * *

The phone was ringing. Loor was staring at it from across the kitchen, unwilling to go and answer it, even though she knew if she didn't it would just go to message. Her parents were rushing to get the truck packed up for their weekend in Michigan, her sister helping as she sluggishly wandered the kitchen, looking for food.

And then the phone began to ring. And Lauren stood at the fridge, just watching it, listening to the digital beeping it had instead of a traditional phone ringer. She could see the screen on the phone, along with the caller ID, from where she stood. It was Fairview clinic; the hospital.

She was relentless, but everyone was outside. She had to pick it up. Or listen to the business-like message when the answering machine picked it up.

On the last ring she dove over and pressed the 'talk' button on the front faceplate, putting it to her ear and speaking somewhat desperately. She knew what was happening, she just didn't want to believe it.

Not after everything she'd done to try and avoid this one event.

She'd never remember the exact words, simply their impact. The doctor was on the other line. He had bad news.

The worst news. But Chelsea had made a list of people to call the night before and left it on her bedside table, as if she'd known what was coming.

_Because she had_. Loor thought bitterly as she hung up. She stood there, the phone in her hand, hanging limp as she stood in the kitchen, the fridge door still open. She was kinda anal about the refrigerator door, because leaving it open wasted energy. Now she didn't care as the cold portal hung ajar. It didn't matter.

Her best friend. Her little sister. Someone she had hoped would be saved by the sacrifice she was making. Someone she prayed would never have to live with these things again, who would able to keep her innocence and her childhood.

Lost.

The phone fell out of her hand. She charged the front door, wailing for her family, all of whom were outside and loading up the truck as the sun was creeping over the horizon. It was so early, but Chelsea's note had demanded that her contacts were called ASAP.

Lauren was first intercepted by her mother, who dropped a suitcase into the dirt driveway to catch her daughter and ask what was wrong. Ann was next, first angry that her little sister was holding up the show until she realized something was indeed incredibly wrong. Dad came around, also stressed but putting it on hold when he figured out such wailing was for more than a stubbed toe or the cat getting it's tail stuck in a door.

No, something was truly wrong.

Lauren babbled in the arms of her mother, more than she ever wanted to say coming out but only half of it getting caught. Her family didn't understand much more than the most central fact.

Chelsea had died. They didn't understand that this was the second time that Lauren had to lose her closest friend, or how that made this second event the fault of the elder sister, they simply saw a teenaged girl who had just lost her friend to some sort of mysterious illness.

A girl who was beyond broken for the fact.

Mom spoke comfort while holding her daughter, rocking slightly and petting the hair that cascaded under the teen's newly habitual hat. Like anyone she assured that it wasn't the child's fault. These things just happened. Chelsea had a weak immune system. It was lucky she'd made it as far as she had, considering the fact that she was born two months premature.

As her mother spoke, sadness took a bitter taste. No one was going to question this event; for all the reasons her mother listed, so would the doctors. They wouldn't know why the girl's body had suddenly up and quit, just give reasons as to why everyone should have kinda expected it.

Eventually the tears stopped for that bitterness. She wiped her face, coming loose of her parents and her elder sister, looking at them all and breathing.

"You going to be okay?" Mom asked as Dad produced a tissue from his pocket; he always had one. Lauren took it gratefully, wiping her eyes and nose.

"Yeah..." She sniffed, blinking to make sure her contacts were still in place. Tears had a way of making such things pop out. She had to be careful when cleaning around her eyes, conscious of the things she was hiding. "I'll be fine. You guys... you need any other help with loading up?"

Mom and Dad looked at each other. "We could miss it this year..." Mom mused. "I don't really feel right going with this going on..."

"It's fine." Lauren mustered more strength into her voice. "Please don't worry about me. I'll be fine. You guys go have fun."

Both adults looked to Ann, who put arms around her sister. "It's alright." She also said, taking responsibility from their shoulders. "I'll keep an eye on her. All the shifts I work this weekend are late, so we can spend the days together."

"Okay..." Mom still looked unsure. "Just keep your head up, baby." She said, addressing Lauren again. "You've been seeming less than your best these past few days too... take care of yourself. You try to take all of the pressure off of your friends and nearly lose yourself for it."

"I'll stay off the phone." Lauren assured, nodding and giving her parents a smile. They'd never know how hard she had to force it through, how much she wanted to start sobbing again as she hugged her parents goodbye once the packing was all done and the truck was started.

They were only going away for three days, but if all went as she planned, she would never see them again. She'd never see anyone.

But she avoided those waterworks. If she cried again they might decide not to leave, and that was even worse. She needed to disappear. Maybe they'd think she'd run away, instead of thinking that she died. They'd never have to know the truth.

She and Ann returned to the house as their parents pulled away. Ann offered for them to watch a movie together, but she politely declined while shutting the fridge door that she'd left open. She wanted to go back to her room. She needed to think about what she was going to do.

Ann, deciding that bullying would be worse than letting the girl shut herself away, allowed it, leaving the invitation open if she decided to come back upstairs.

Once back down in her room, Loor had taken to pacing once more. It had been her favorite action in the past days, walking up and down the aisle in her room, fingers playing about each other as she considered her many options.

But even that frantic action had her dizzy and tired. Her body was giving up faster than her brain was. Before anything came to mind she was forced to sit down on her bed and instead stare at the ceiling as she clumsily bumped her thumbs together in an attempt to twiddle them.

_It has to be tonight. _

_**How many times do I have to tell you? I'm not going to help you. **_

_Lyra, don't you understand? Everything I came back for has turned to dust. Fury's dead, I wasn't able to secure a safe place for making eco, and now we're dying. Do you want to go through the shortage again? _

_**It's already happening, you silly girl! You can feel it too; your body is shutting down as I am forced to withdraw and keep myself alive. You may hate this feeling but I dare you to take the sensation I must; the feeling of shrinking away to nothing. Your body is eating me alive! Will I willingly feed myself to the wolf? I do not think so! **_

_You only prolong the torture by resisting. Tonight. We could go somewhere in the woods and die quickly. Let the wildlife do away with the body before anyone found us. Mom and Dad will be out of cell phone contact in a few hours, impossible to bring them back to the house until we're long gone. It's perfect._

_**It is not. You don't want to die any more than I do... you just think you do. **_

_Why wouldn't I want to die? My existence has been nothing more than a bother, a pest to all who know me. Chelsea is dead! _

_**Return to Haven. Go back. It's so simple, and yet you fail to understand it. **_

_I can't go back! And even if I did, what would be the point? I get to meander along for another few years before **you** eat **me, **as you so eloquently put it. _

_**You know exactly what the point would be. Those last few years spent with someone you wish you'd never left. Someone you fell in love with. **_

She stared at the ceiling a few moments before answering, tears coming from her eyes again. The contacts had slipped out, but she hadn't lifted her hands to pick them up from her cheeks and put them away in their case. She wasn't thinking about that.

_That doesn't matter. _

_**THE HELL IT DOESN'T MATTER! If he was here you wouldn't even be considering this! You'd fight and scream and cry but ultimately you'd bend because you'd give anything for another few days with him. **_

_If it was just me, yeah. _

There was another silence. Lyra didn't expect Loor to agree.

_If it was just my life on the line, sure. I'd go around the world to be with him. But it isn't. Returning to Haven means risking the whole future. My family might have survived the calamity; I'd be murdering nieces and nephews, cousins more generations down than I can count, but family just the same. I need to stay out of that time... and I cannot survive in this one. This is the easiest way out... for everyone. _

_**What makes you so sure you'd ruin everything? You keep insisting that you'd destroy the future if you became a part of it.**_

_Look around, Lyra._ Loor shook her head, moving to get up and put her contacts back in instead of replacing them in their case. _Every plan I've ever made, something went wrong. The VC-M1 is useless in the time. In Haven I ended up with out and without Chelsea, despite my best efforts to get us home before something went terribly wrong, which it did. Even in returning here, I find that the converter is out of my reach. In every plan I lay, something goes wrong. And considering the ever changing conditions and locations, I have to assume the common factor is me. If I went back, with the plan to become part of the future and help preserve it, I'd be sure to destroy it. _

_**So don't make a plan. Simple. **_

_Nice try, Lyra._ Loor actually managed a rueful laugh. _But my brain is always too busy to try that avenue. _

_**Tell me about it... **_The animal groaned.

Loor left her room, going upstairs to spend a few more hours with her sister.

As she kept telling herself, her last days belonged to her family. She had to enjoy them to the very last moment.

* * *

**The Author's Corner**

Hokay so the new keyboard is on the way so dumb mistakes of letters missing should stop happening. It arrives on Saturday. YAY!

Next time, punks.

Happy reading,

-Loor


	10. Finding

**Disclaimer: I do not own Jak. Or Daxter. Or the other copy-written items mentioned in this work of fanfiction. MEOW.**

**Vacation or War- Return  
****Chapter Ten- Finding**

The house was silent. Loor lay in her room, her cat on her stomach, staring at the ceiling and waiting for a reason she didn't even know. She'd made her decision, and yet she hesitated. Her sister was gone, at work, leaving her alone. She had several hours to go into the woods behind her house and find a place to be lost. She knew how to hide her live body in games of hide and seek, against the inconvenient need to breathe. A dead body should have been even easier.

But she had so much trouble wanting to get up from her bed. She lay against her pillows, upon layers of comforters, dragging her eyes away from the ceiling and catching the form of the duck on her wall. It was a quilted wall-hanging she'd had for as long as she could remember, her mother making it for her when she was still a baby. It had watched over her no matter what, a constantly present thing in her room. It smiled at her, holding an umbrella and trotting through a bed of flowers. It didn't look to be raining, but the duck had an umbrella all the same.

And it watched her.

She closed her eyes. Her _natural_ eyes. She'd taken off the hat and removed the contacts the second Ann had left the house, letting her look into the mirror and once again see that she was turning into the altered form eco had given her. With her eyes closed she imagined sleeping, but there was too much tension to allow rest. Even where her shortage would give her all the sleep she'd hold still for, she could not drift off.

Not when she had a plan. She had to carry it out.

This would be the one time nothing went wrong... because the plan itself was something wrong. The murder of a person, even by themselves, was a disgusting thing. Even as she told herself it was nothing more than euthanasia, it would be murder in Lyra's case.

The animal hadn't spoken to her in hours. Not since she'd gone to spend time with her sister and spontaneously started crying. The movie the girls were going to watch was forgotten as Lauren simply laid in her sister's arms and sobbed. Ann wasn't the type to question why a person was broken, not when the reasons were so clearly obvious, but she was happy to be there and speak soothingly.

"Get up." She actually spoke outloud to herself. "You have to do this. If you wait you'll get too weak to move and end up in the hospital, just like Chelsea... you'll get attention, leave everyone with all the questions in the world. It's better to leave them with just one question. Just one."

Still she lay.

"Get up, Lauren." She told herself. Her name felt strange on her tongue, as if she were speaking to someone else. A child, too young to understand the events and respond to them. "Go. Just go. You're not needed. Get up."

Her cat shifted on her stomach, mewing in a way that sounded mildly upset. She'd stopped petting him.

Finally, she moved her pet aside and stood up. She was standing. Like a puppet on strings, moving quickly and unnaturally, she wrenched her door open and marched out into the game room. She continued upstairs, to the sliding glass door in the dining area, throwing it open and not bothering to close it behind her. She had to get into the open air. There she could decide how she would do this.

There she would decide how she would die.

_**I thought you wanted my help in this.**_

_You've made it clear you will not help. _Loor snorted, stepping down off of the back deck and heading for the land beyond the trimmed part of the yard. There was a little long grass before the bear patch of sand that she claimed for her sparring grounds. Beyond was a stream that separated the main yard from the swamp and woods; a bridge was built over the top of rock and dirt with a pipe running through the bottom to let the stream flow still. She was heading for the woods, but she stopped on the bridge. _Without your help... I will do this myself. _

_**NO! You will not! **_

_You speak as if you can stop me, Lyra. Exerting yourself that much is sure to use up all the eco we have left... either way, we shall perish. _

There was no answer, just a feral growl. Lyra had no qualms if she could just kill Loor and go on herself, but sadly the two were too intimately connected.

Left alone with her thoughts, Loor had to consider just how she was going to do it. She'd attempted this once before, months ago. She'd gone to the back woods and climbed a tree with the intention to jump. A stunt that might've worked if it were winter and the ground was frozen, but the summer turned the world squishy. She'd only mortally wound herself. Her aim was to limit the suffering to a few moments, not several hours.

She listened to the stream that fed the swamp that began in her yard. Water was such a relaxing thing, and it saddened her that the stream that went through was no good for swimming. It was only two feet of water with a muck bottom. The mud had to be another two feet, three in some cases, and nearly impossible to swim in. She'd gone wading once, and though it was never deep enough to go completely under it was a lot of work to free one's feet once they were stuck.

She briefly wondered what it would be like if she shoved her head in the mud.

If she pushed all the air out of her lungs, it would be over quickly. Even when her body struggled on instinct, it would be unlikely that she'd be able to get free.

She moved for the bank of the stream, stopping on the edge and considering her attire. She was dressed for bed; she'd come outside in a sports bra and night pants. She almost wanted to strip before entering the water, but resisted the urge. Her clothes would rot with her body; whether she was buried in the mud or carried downstream into the swamp, it would take some time for anyone to find her.

She slipped into the cold water, her feet squishing into the muck. The mud was actually warmer than the water, with the occasional twig or leaf brushing by her legs as she waded into the center. She faced the bridge, looking up. Trees grew on the banks, making a beautiful frame of the moon and stars above.

For a moment, she remembered the beauty of Haven Forest. The sounds, smells, and natural splendor that she'd lived to see. That was a place she would have liked to be buried.

Tears clouded her vision again. She tried to ignore them, crossing her arms in front of her chest and looking down into the dark water that flowed past her. She was up to her belly button in water, her toes wiggling in the mud. The mud came up past her knees, she could feel. She'd go under and couch to press her face into the murk. She'd be powerless once she did that.

There would be no going back.

For a moment, the water reflected a memory.

"He's not going to come and save you." She muttered to herself. "He can't."

She took another breath, pushing it out but then gasping for the next. She'd have to exhale under the water if she wanted that to work.

She heard her cat, who must have followed her outside, meowing loudly. He always did that when he couldn't find her; he'd follow her outside every time she left the house and keep watch. He'd yowl, sometimes for half an hour, until she yelled to tell him where she was.

"I'm sorry..." She whispered, shaking herself against the near instant reaction to call out to him. "Everyone... I'm so sorry..."

She put her head under the water.

* * *

"What the hell is taking so long?"

Jak had been pacing for upwards of two hours, perhaps three, waiting for Samos and Onin to coordinate and send him after Loor. It had been early that morning that she'd left, and he'd gone and gotten Samos so he could follow. It was going to take both Onin and the green sage to send him, but he was made anxious by how long he was being forced to wait.

"Patience!" Pecker snapped, just as grumpy because he had skipped all of his snacks and naps that day. "It is going to take all the energy these two can muster... and even then I do not think Onin will be able to send you as far back as she sent Loor."

"Just as long as I can get to her and stop her from doing anything... damaging." He sighed, shaking his head. Lauren was a creature of action; every moment he was stalled made him sure she was going to do something horrible either to herself or the world around her.

It was an interesting situation. Jak had been planning to go after Loor either way, but when Onin sent the girl she realized that Lauren had designs on a precursor artifact that was not to be trifled with. In hopes of preventing her from doing anything that might damage the future, they were sending Jak to retrieve her.

Or neutralize her. But he wasn't thinking about that.

Jak hadn't spoken to Daxter; it was taking long enough for Samos to formulate the proper energy to alter Jak's physical form so he'd fit in during Loor's time period. Dax probably would have been too much. The ottsel didn't even know Loor had taken off.

Pecker was studying his master, though, a slight frown on his animal face. "Not much longer..." He said, spreading his wings and fluttering away from where Jak stood in the entrance of Onin's tent. "Onin will do her best to place you close to where Loor should be. Find her quickly, and do what you must."

"And how are we getting back?" Jak saw fit to ask, though it was a question that should have come up a lot earlier.

"A device brought her here, that you know. She has many, _aawwrk,_ that can bring her back. Besides that, she is a smart girl. A tad crazy, but smart."

Jak looked over to Onin and Samos; both were channeling eco into a white mass that glowed rainbow colors on the edges, though it was tinted green by Samos's particular contribution. Both were clearly putting their all into it; sweating and twisted up in the face for concentration. "Huge understatements." Jak told pecker, becoming mesmerized by the white light.

The white light suddenly burst forth, an explosion that washed Onin's tent in the whole spectrum, though the most lasting flash was a final shot of green brilliance.

Jak had been focused on his surroundings, but he'd been effectively blinded by the light. Where he'd been staring at Samos one moment, the next all he knew was bright white light. It was too bright. He had to close his eyes.

When he did, he noticed he'd been knocked off of his feet as well. Closing his eyes shut a door on all of his senses, as if he were floating in a dark limbo. Momentary fear gripped him; had something gone wrong? He'd been through a rift once before, and the sensation had been like flying through a tunnel. This was like all sensation had been taken away.

Until he found himself laying in a patch of grass. He could feel the blades, damp with evening dew, cushioning his body. His nose flared at the smell of a wooded thicket with the hint of a swamp, the sound of toads and crickets giving him the vision of a starry and clear night.

And when he opened his eyes, that was exactly what he saw. He was out in the middle of a large area of long grass, a few trees blocking his view of the night sky, though silver stars appeared in the gaps. Silver was a strange color; the sky looked oddly boring. He was so used to multicolored stars from both Sandover and Haven; a chaotic rainbow on black velvet. Here, it was silver. Some variations of silver, some looking more blue or green than others, but mostly silver.

All in all, the scene was tranquil. He sat up, looking one way to see the long grass led back to a neatly trimmed lawn around a house; all the lights were off, but a door was left wide open on top of a deck that came off the back. He had to assume that was Loor's house.

But something was wrong. Why would a door be left open?

Off to his right, the other direction, he heard the loud and almost panicked mewling of a feline creature. He reminded him of the muse he'd chased down for the sculptor in Sandover, but when he looked he found a slightly different animal. It was white, and though it had a similar build to a muse the tail was smaller, the ears were shorter, and the body was thicker. It's head was raised over the grass, looking to where the trees had thickened, yowling again, clearly looking for something.

Jak got up out of the grass, forgoing a look at himself to investigate. The white animal had bounded forward, stopping in another few steps and pinning it's ears forward.

Obviously it could hear something in the thicket beyond. Jak could see it broke up at a specific point. He began moving faster, curiosity and some other force driving him. He felt tense, more than he'd expect with such tranquil surroundings. There were no monsters out here, nothing that hinted to something terrible happening. Just a quiet and simple night.

But still he felt that something was about to go horribly wrong.

The white animal followed him as he began to jog ahead, meowing along the way.

He found the woods began around a stream that flowed by, and were broken by a man-made bridge that had been built over it. He came to stop on the center, once again looking to his right; downstream. He'd heard something more than the water flowing by. That was a pleasant sound, but he also heard something else. A splash; water sloshing around something that was moving. Something bigger than a fish.

He stared into the dark water below the bridge, seeing ripples a few feet beyond the bridge. Was that normal? This was indeed a world he didn't know, but he had to assume basic things were still true. Big fish didn't live in little streams. Something else was there.

Bubbles came up from the point in the water, along with another ripple that made a small wave. And another. Something was struggling under the water! Without thinking twice, Jak hopped down into the stream from the bridge, finding the muck bottom with his feet and his hands diving forward where the water was disturbed. Behind him, the white animal had caught up and was letting go unearthly sounds of panic... if not sadness. It was the wailing of a mourner, the scream of a friend or family member left abandoned by death.

His hands also found the muck; and someone's shoulders. He gripped them without hesitation or question, yanking upwards to rip them free of the swamp mud and the water, thinking quickly of what he could do if they'd swallowed too much water. They'd still been struggling; as long as they could clear their lungs they would be alright.

Their head emerged from under the water, covered in black mud. It was a girl, teenaged and with a small build. At once her body heaved to bring liquid out of her lungs, hacking up mud and spitting water, taking short and desperate breaths through coughing and crying.

He was in a small amount of shock. Not even ten seconds on this side of history and he'd saved a person from drowning. Concern came as he still held her shoulders, her hands clutching his forearms for support as her body still rejected unwanted fluid.

"Are... are you alright?"

Her body experienced a shock. Coughing had subsided to allow for hasty panting, trying to regain needed oxygen. Her head shook slightly. "I... I must have done it then... and it still hurts... no fair..."

It was his turn to twitch slightly. He hadn't recognized her while she was covered in muck and bent over, and before he hadn't been able to see her, stuck under the water. But her voice, no matter how broken, was an easy tone to pick out.

"Lauren?" He wrenched her shoulders up, getting her to stand upright and looking her in the face. Dirty and waterlogged, but it was indeed her. He didn't question what she'd been doing in a stream, drowning, just at the moment, simply staring at her. A hand pushed her hair back, the other still holding her by the top of the arm, seeing her eyes through squinted lids, her face still twisted by the itch in her lungs.

Purple and green eyes that left no room to question who she was.

He yanked her into a hug, squeezing tightly despite the fact that her body once again began to produce liquid, making her spit over his shoulder. She was in no condition to fight off any sort of physical bounds.

Now that he held her, he had to question.

"What were you doing? What... what happened?"

She was still sobbing while holding back on sputtering. Any words that came out of her mouth were jumbled and almost impossible to understand. Eventually, the only thing that came clearly was a question of her own.

"What... what are you doing here...? You weren't... Onin..."

"Sent me to save you from yourself." He muttered, still holding her tightly. Not quite the truth, but it sounded better than actual purpose he'd been given... and she didn't need all of that dropped on her right now. He had her again, and despite the desperate conditions he couldn't be more relived.

The white animal was seated on the bank, meowing in different tone. It sounded happy.

* * *

**The Author's Corner**

BLARG! SUSPENCE OVER!

And my keyboard shows up tomorrow!

Love ya'll. See you next time.

-Loor


	11. Savior

**Disclaimer: I don't own Jak.**

**Vacation or War- Return  
****Chapter Eleven- Savior**

She had tried to kill herself. She had made a plan to go out and rid the world of her presence, and like all of her best laid designs it was ruined by an outside force beyond her control. Perhaps she should have felt her usual rage, but that was difficult when her mind was so addled by confusion. How had _he_ gotten _here? _He said Onin had sent him to save her, but that made even less sense. Onin wouldn't be concerned with such a romantic and petty plight, and Pecker would have laughed him right out of the tent.

No, something greater had to be going on here... but the moment she tried to puzzle out what the rage she should have been feeling broke through, preventing any sort of consideration aside from where to punch the man she was practically wrapped around, hacking the muck out of her lungs from her failed attempted.

Her _foiled_ attempt. He'd saved her. She should have been kissing his feet, not plotting a cheep shot to the balls. Her body shook for many reasons, weakness and oxygen deprivation certainly on the list, but her emotional confusion was there as well. For every sweet breath of air she was able to take she was blessing his arrival, cursing it with every painful jolt of her lungs. She didn't want to suffer. She wanted to die.

She was going to die. He'd just stalled her.

She pulled free of his hold, though doing so deprived her of support. She was dizzy, almost sick after trying to breathe part of the peat bog. She served him an intense glare, all of her emotional confusion turning to frustration as she once again saw his face. "Why?" She demanded, tears still balanced at the edges of her eyes. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

"Saving you." He pointed out, still holding her shoulders even though she'd pulled out of the hug. "I told you I wouldn't leave you alone, didn't I?"

"And I told you not to follow me!" She snapped, beating a hand against the water. "Do you have any idea how long it's been since I've gotten back, Jak? Did you... did you think you could just appear and sweep me off my feet?"

"I was planning on trying, though it didn't sound quite that stupid in my head."

She shook her head, pushing away his hands and bending her head to the water to clean her face. She was covered in mud, and she was rather sick of the stuff. She'd be tasting it for weeks to say the least. Thankfully the muck settled quickly, leaving fairly clean water for her to wash her face off in. As she did so, giving herself a moment or two of silence, she realized something.

She was still alive. Coming above the water, she was still breathing.

She stared at him. That was his doing. She'd lived to see him again.

"How long has it been...?" He asked as she let her gaze linger.

"Weeks." She answered. A short and almost surprised response. It was finally getting through to her mind. He was here. He was in her time. He had come for her.

He had come to stop her. Save her from herself. There was no vision of prince charming, simply a necessity as she threatened herself more effectively than Kor or Errol ever had. Neither of them had gotten so close to killing her as she had herself.

"Why...?" She asked again, her rage burning out. Her voice took a softer tone as she reached for his hands, letting him hold her again. "I... Jak... it all went wrong... everything went wrong... It's been weeks... and I was wrong. I was _so_ wrong." She shook her head again, biting her lip while looking at him. Her mind wanted to explode as she processed him from face to eyes, hair to body, noting some minor changes. Actually, just one. "What... your ears...?"

"Forget it." He said quickly. "What happened?"

Her gaze hardened. "I failed. There's no way for me to create eco in this time without... sending myself forward again. I... I was already dying. I didn't want to suffer... so..."

She looked down into the dark water. Shame showed on her face, not for the attempt on her life, but for the fact that she failed in her own personal mission.

"I'm still dying." She noted. "It was supposed to end tonight. It was all going to... but... you had to..." Once again she shook her head from side to side, as if desperate to clear it. "You. I just don't believe it... I just can't..." She looked up, lips slightly open as if more words were to come, but she hadn't the ability to think of them. "You... I need you hide you. You can't be here..."

"Don't think about that yet." He insisted, smiling again now that her anger had left her. "You don't have to think about it yet."

"What else is there to think about...?" She felt like fainting, feeling the need to study him. It was like she couldn't convince herself that her eyes were telling the truth. "I must be dreaming... or maybe I did die, and the angle that's going to take me away just turned into the person I wanted to see..." She bent her head a little. "You can't be here..." She repeated.

"Surprise." He managed a small chuckle, pushing her chin back up. "Lauren..."

"You're going to ask me to go back... right? But I don't wanna argue right now... I... good _God_ look at this mess I've made... I have to clean it all up..."

"Stop thinking."

"I have to think. I need to. There's so much to be done, and I don't have any time. You need to go back, but-"

Her words stopped as her mouth was covered, finding herself wrapped up by him again. Any question of whether or not he was actually there vanished between their lips, and other thoughts lost as he pulled her close and pushed her wet hair back and away from her face. A second was allowed for them to break and reconsider, but care for facts and questions and whos and wheres and whys had evaporated. Her hands took a path up into his hair, yanking him back for more.

She'd been a joyless creature since she'd left his side. No positive feeling had really stuck since her arrival back home, and she'd never imagined it could be associated with his absence. All was blamed on her own personal failures, ruined plans and likewise.

But now she had him, once again embraced and feeling like she was going to explode if she didn't get just one more taste of his lips. There was no word for this feeling, but it ultimately freed her from all that had been dragging her down.

Or perhaps there was a word, but it just felt too small and inadequate to explain it all.

She placed her head on his shoulder, still nuzzling and brushing her lips across his skin as he kept her close, neither of them pulling to leave the water or considering what needed to be done in the next few hours. None of that mattered; in that moment they were just two people who had gone through hell to see each other one more time.

She let a small laugh out, a short jolt of her shoulders and a snort of breath. "Just in time, hero..."

"Is that a thank you?"

"I thought that was what the kiss was for..."

"But I started it."

"Details..." She muttered, too exhausted to bicker with him.

* * *

Removing themselves from the mud and returning the house was a short and embarrassing venture. First off was that though Jak may have arrived looking just like himself minus the ears, he'd arrived without any proper coverings. Loor had forced him to stay in the water while she returned to the house to hose off her muddy feet and go inside to find a towel as a temporary covering. Once inside she sent him to the lower level, quickly checking the clock finding she still had two hours before her sister was due home.

Plenty of time to hide him. Her mind was finally working properly again, priorities getting in order and ideas bouncing once more of how to fix her current situation. She'd need a day or two to figure out just what was the best avenue of doing that, and for that day or two he certainly wasn't going to rent a hotel.

First things first, she raided her elder brother's room for some clothes that were likely to fit both him and her; she'd grown out of most of her wardrobe and her night pants were effectively ruined. She didn't even bother pushing them to laundry, she just tossed them into the large garbage bin in front of the house.

Returning downstairs, she hadn't donned the new set of pants just yet. She was in desperate need of a shower before she could even consider putting on fresh clothes.

She found him where she'd left him, standing in the hallway to her room, looking around with mild curiosity and just about to try the knob to her room.

"Where do you think you're going?" She asked.

He rounded, giving a slight smile. "Exploring."

"That's my room." She said, offering him one of the two pairs of pants she had retrieved, along with a clean set of boxer shorts. "I really need a bath, and then I'll set you up in there... no one can know you're here. It... it's not allowed."

"I guessed as much. Where is everyone?"

"Ann's at work. Mom and Dad are gone for the weekend. Paul's away at boot camp. The plan had been to... take care of myself so the body would be impossible to find by the time someone came home and started looking. I wanted them to think I'd run away." She shook her head, sadness taking for a moment. "It won't be long, you know. A few more days, maybe, and I'll be bedridden. I didn't wanna have to go that way..."

"What exactly happened with the idea of you creating eco for yourself?" He asked, yet to retreat into her room as he was told.

It wasn't like she was dashing into the bathroom herself, a door just to her right. No, she just stood there, frowning slightly. "I underestimated how far underground it would be; the device that prevents me from making eco, that is. I'm just a kid on this side of history, without tools or manpower... it would take months to get at it, and it's under a major building. I don't have access... I pretty much accepted I was going to die two weeks ago."

He took this quietly, nodding a little. "That's a little odd."

"What? Why?" She perked up a little. New information from the other side gave her hope that she might be able to survive just yet.

"Onin and Samos sent me back to stop you from messing with that precursor device... said you could fuck up the future bad if you screwed with it. But you couldn't get to it..."

"Looks like you just took a trip through time for nothing, huh?" She finally moved to enter the bathroom, opening the door and flicking the light on. She moved quickly to get a shower going, checking the cabinet to make sure she still had a dry towel left over. She then turned to put her dry pants on the counter, only to be intercepted.

He'd followed her into the bathroom, catching her as she turned. "I came back for you." He said bluntly, the hand that had been holding the tuck on his towel the whole time clasping her arm. "I didn't care why else Onin told me, I cared that I was coming to get _you._"

"Just because you showed up here doesn't mean I can go back." She snarled, her back nearly to the wall as he got in her face. "I need to figure out how to send you back quickly... I'm a dead girl walking."

There was tense moment, but Jak eventually unhanded her. "We'll talk after you're clean." Was all he said, turning to leave the bathroom and enter her room.

Lauren watched him go, waiting for him to shut the door and then collapsing back on the wall. It had been everything she had just to stay standing for as long as she had; her knees had turned to jelly when she'd first seen his face again, and as her dream theory became less and less likely she was willing to believe that she'd actually come after her.

And she'd actually been able to hold him again. Physical craving burned in the pit of her stomach, twisting up her guts and making her want to storm her room, even in her dirty condition. The worst had been those last few seconds; a daydream wondered what it would have been like if he'd powered her into the wall and kissed her once more.

_**Well... what a lovely turn of events...**_

_Oh, look who decided to join the party._ Loor groaned softly while putting her hands to her head. She imagined Lyra was none too happy with her, what with the near drowning and all. _Can you wait to rape my brain until after my shower? _

_**You're still alive, dearest. I think I can leave the mental maiming till another time; my attention is in other places. **_

Lyra's attention was shown as Loor couldn't shake her little daydream, the towel falling off of his body. She felt her face turning slightly red, but also the knot in her stomach growing hot.

_Glad you're so easily distracted... You realize I have to get rid of him though. _

_**That or you could go with him. Do you really think he'll leave without you? **_

_I think he don't got a choice in the matter. And I don't either. _

_**Oh really? Onin sent him back to prevent you from screwing with something you found you couldn't screw with. Sound a tad fishy to you? **_

Loor hadn't been thinking that way. She'd been so focused on the old argument that the new conditions never crossed her mind. Lyra was right, as strange as_ that_ was. Onin had sent her home at her direct request, but if there had been an actual problem the woman could have refused. And now Jak had been sent after her for a problem that didn't actually exist.

_Something else is going on here. _Loor agreed. _Onin had to have been playing at something... and Jak's holding back on telling me why she actually sent him after me. He might just be waiting for me to cool down a little before he drops the next bombshell on my head. Wouldn't be the first time he's considered my mental condition before speaking. _

_**Well then hurry up and take your stupid shower. **_Lyra seemed to be whining a little. She was still entertaining the daydream that Loor had started but she kept elaborating on outside of the girl's conscious mind. She didn't need it at the forefront to know that Lyra was enjoying it very much; she could feel the animal's lust.

She did her best not to let it get to her. Business came first.

But she found no guilt in indulging in a few more sinful kisses once they had things properly figured out.

* * *

**The Author's Corner**

Oh-ho-ho... Loor's starting to turn into a naughty girl. XDD Glad we're finally through all the sad shit, because the mood was killing me.

I HAZ CHOCOLATE!

-Loor


	12. Mistaken

**Disclaimer: I do not own Jak and Daxter, Jak II, or any other copy written items mentioned in this work of fanfiction.**

**Vacation or War- Return  
****Chapter Twelve- Mistaken**

Jak had changed clothes and was now carefully exploring Loor's room... or at least, doing the best he could without turning the light on. There was a stereo in the corner, it's digital display casting a dim green light that made strange shadows. So far he'd bumped into the dresser, a low table next to her bed, the bed itself, and thankfully found the desk with his hands instead of his knees. Granted, the desk was boxed into a corner by the bed, so it would have been difficult to trip over. It didn't help that the room as an absolute mess; the floor was covered in odds and ends, the carpet only showing by the door.

For some reason, he wasn't surprised. Loor was too busy trying to keep her mind in order to keep a living space even vaguely organized.

With nothing better to do, he flopped back on the bed and it's massive amount of pillows and blankets. The bed was cushy compared to anything else he'd ever laid back on, and she had enough pillows to cover the whole surface. He had to wonder; if this was what she was used to, how the hell did she managed to get any sleep at all at the underground?

Of course, he knew what it was like to be ripped from home and put though experiences beyond one's worst nightmares. That alone was exhausting enough to sleep just about anywhere.

He wondered where she might hide him. He'd known he wouldn't be welcome when he came, but hadn't considered that possible lodgings might include under a girl's bed. He would rather sleep next to her rather than hidden away, but one could guess that wouldn't be allowed.

None of that mattered though. There were more important matters on the table at the moment; he had to convince her to come back with him. It wouldn't be too difficult, or at least it wouldn't be as long as she was thinking clearly about it. He just hoped the short supply of eco in her body hadn't already gotten her brain to start firing blanks.

Briefly, he wished Daxter was there. Long and lonely moments of silence never survived in the ottsel's presence. At the same time he was rather thankful that his friend wasn't there; this was going to be like a short vacation for him, and if he was going to be living in Loor's room for these few days he wasn't going to leave her alone for a second of it.

No; back in Haven their kisses had been dares against fate. A forbidden fruit, as she insisted time and again. Forbidden? Fine. He'd never cared for rules, and he wanted more than just her lips.

He could hear when the water in the bathroom shut off; sitting up quickly on the bed and facing the door. Despite the alterations to his ears, his hearing hadn't been effected at all.

A few moments later, she entered the room. She was still toweling off her hair, dressed in the night pants she hadn't given to him and a sports bra that was hardly containing her. The white animal that had been outside when he landed darted into the room between her feet as she turned her body back out of the doorway, tossing the towel towards the room at the end of the hallway before shutting the door behind her with her foot.

"Y'know, you'd be surprised on what a good shower can do for a person's mood..." She muttered, looking at him with a small smile. "Of course... having someone save your life can kinda be a booster too, depending on the conditions."

"Thought you got mad when people saved you." He returned the smile, though he noticed she didn't move away from the door.

"I can't hold it again you, it's kinda your thing." She snickered, but crossed her arms over her stomach. She was tense. Uncomfortable for some reason. "Anyone should be flattered that you found the time to show up personally."

"Everything okay?" He questioned, paying more attention to her body language than the words coming out of her mouth. She was speaking for the sake of, babbling because she was nervous.

"Hacked up a little more muck in the shower... other than that, dandy. Alive..." She allowed a short pause, shifting on the spot a little. "You wanted to talk, right? I mean... what's going on? Onin... she wouldn't send you after me for something that was never really a danger in the first place... what exactly did she tell you to do?"

"Her exact words?" He thought back on it. "According to Pecker, they sent me after you because you had designs on an important precursor device here in the past. Like I said, I don't really care what they told me to do. I came back for you."

"No, no..." She shook her head, still holding herself. "What did they tell you to do about it? About me?"

He blinked, and then smirked. He hadn't considered exact verbiage. Getting her to decide to come back with him was going to be as easy as relaying Onin's orders.

"Either bring you back or get rid of you."

Her weight landed on the door as she leaned back, using it as a crutch as her mind processed the new development. He hadn't been sent to stop her.

He'd been sent to bring her back. Onin had commanded it, knowing all the details necessary. Which meant...

"I was wrong..." She muttered, staring at the wall that used to hold all of her artwork. She'd cleared it, and now it looked naked and broken, almost more shameful than an outside eye seeing what had been so many works of fanart. She knew that shame even more intimately now. "She only sent me back because I commanded it... didn't she? Pecker even kinda tried to talk me out of it... But I wouldn't hear it... I put myself through this for no reason at all... I could have..."

He watched as her head swayed back and forth, not forceful enough to be a shake but a defined wavering as she attempted to clear the fog.

"Not nothing." She muttered to herself. "I got to see everyone one last time. That's not nothing... I'll say goodbye properly. But time... I don't have any..." She shifted her weight forward, aiming to jump onto her bed but her feet failing to leave the ground, making her trip and only half of her body actually making it to the pillows. Jak caught her shoulders, pulling her the rest of the way up. He made an attempt to hold her, but she'd passed on affection for the moment to get to her desk and the hulking machine on top of it; her computer.

She then looked back at him, as he wouldn't be denied, hands holding her shoulders as she sat up and pulled her keyboard into her lap, the computer humming to life and the monitor flashing on. "It... there's no time..."

"Sure there is." He soothed, sliding his palms down to her elbows. "Do you have a knife somewhere? Something sharp?"

She blinked, wondering why he'd ask such a thing, and then realizing it. Her panic over time was because of the lack of eco in her system... eco he had. She could feel it where he touched her; the slight buzz that was just past his skin. They could pull the same stunt that he'd done for her when she'd been dying of the shortage; blood-to-blood contact would let her take whatever charge he had.

And give her more time.

She reached over to her bed-side table, coming back with a belt holster; inside was a small knife that flipped open, kept in good condition with a plenty sharp edge.

She gave it to him, unsure if she could cut herself open without severing an important tendon in her hand or something of that sort. He took it with a nod, testing the edge before taking her hand and giving her a quick slash across the palm.

Instantly blood came up to the open air, more red than it was purple.

He repeated the act upon himself, wiping the knife on the pants and taking her hand as his other hand worked to put the little blade away.

"That's twice." She sighed, feeling the change instantly. Grogginess cleared as if she'd had an infusion of coffee to the spinal cord, blinking a few times as she could almost feel the blood re-activating important parts of her mind. "And you haven't even been here for more than two hours..." She trailed off, staring at the connection. The two clasped hands kept the wounds together, allowing the cuts to stay open and for the transfer to be made as cleanly as possible, both of them exerting enough pressure to prevent leaking. "I really needed you... you know that?"

Her last statement made him snap a look at her, staring a little. Loor never directly said it, but she often acted as if she didn't need anyone. If anything, others needed her. He'd known better to suggest she might need somebody to lean on, figuring it would land a fist in his face, so it was shocking to hear her admit it.

"Only cause you keep trying to take on the world single-handedly."

"You do that. Of course, you're a hero... you get away with that shit."

"Hey, last I checked I got some help taking Kor out." He smirked at her, pulling her over while laying back. The result left her sitting atop him as he relaxed in the massive pillow pile. "When we get back, you'll be a hero too."

She yelped when yanked, but didn't argue. Instead she just relaxed with her head on his chest, eyes tracking to the duck on her wall. "You coulda done it without me." She huffed. "I'm just a kid."

"You survived. Lyra practically ripped Kor's throat out for me. Pretty good for a kid..." He shifted slightly, looking down at her. "Give yourself a little credit."

She shrugged, still staring at the wall. He could tell her brain was hard at work again.

"Five days." She suddenly said.

"Hm?" He blinked, not assuming anything.

"My device... the VC-M1... it produces eco. That amount of eco dictates how far forward a person gets flung past the calamity. Years, days, and so on. The converter reacts to how much energy is produced and uses it up while getting rid of the source and the people around it. I have no idea just how much my original device created... but I have a copy of it. Damian does, actually. Oh, he's going to _love_ this..."

"Damian?"

"Friend. Partner. Used to be boyfriend but it was never official. Never even kissed the guy. He gets me my raw materials, scalping them from his dad, who works in computer hardware. Whenever I make something, I make two, and he gets one of the prototypes so I get his take on everything I do. Energy was never his gig though... when I started this project he just became my warehouse. Either way..." She sat up a little, propping an arm on his chest to look down at him. "When we go back I don't know if we'll twin, like the Samoses did, or if it'll go like it did when Onin sent me back here."

"How did that go?"

"It was like waking up. The white light had put me to sleep, and then I woke up into my body here... it was really fucking weird." She shrugged to dismiss it. "Either way, if we activate the device five days from now we should show up right around the victory party. If orientation is anything, and I have to assume it is, then it'll be best to activate from a location north of here..."

"Why?"

"Fury's house landed me and her in the fortress. My house is a good ways east of her... maybe enough to put us outside of the wall. Not a good place to be when remnants of the metal head army are probably still milling about. No, straight north of my original launch point would probably be best..." She mused on it. "I'll check a map and see who I can tap who's in the right spot."

He nodded, wanting to ask about Fury but fearing the worst. If Loor didn't talk about bringing her little sister along, it was likely she hadn't survived, regardless of what had been done to prevent it.

Maybe that was another failure on her head, part of what drove her to try and drown herself. He didn't want to remind Loor of such things right now.

"Think you can hide me for five days?" He asked instead.

"Should be easy enough... just as long as you don't leave my room and you stay quiet while I'm gone..."

"Hey, I'm on vacation." He tucked his free hand under his head, crossing his legs at the ankles and grinning. "Pillows, naps, and good company. Sounds good to me."

"Kinda my vacation too... what's left of it anyway." She let her arm slide out again, relaxing and nuzzling under his jaw. She knew she should have been thinking about hiding him; Ann sometimes came and checked on her when she got home to make sure she was actually sleeping instead of sitting up with her computer. It was even more likely tonight, with what had happened to Fury. Still, she'd be hard pressed to clear out any part of her room for him while she had one hand occupied with an eco transfusion.

She'd have to wait until she'd taken as much as she could from him. Until then, she'd be better off just trying to relax.

But such things were sometimes difficult. All other major stresses finally taken away, she came to the realization that she had her body relaxed on top of him. Until that point she'd only noted that he was warm and actually made a decent pillow. Now she thought about the fact that if she moved just a little bit she could be straddling his hips.

Pressed up under his jaw line, she got the urge to kiss, perhaps even bite, his neck. She wondered how he would react, not questioning where the idea had come from. She didn't need to. Be it her own sick mind or Lyra's animal instincts, she responded at once.

Parted lips met warm skin, teeth gently dragging as she left off and returned for a second pass, starting higher and sucking gently. Simply trying sent her over the moon, her body flaring heat up through her stomach as she dared to chance such things. A greater reward came beyond that; he responded with a soft growl coming up from his chest, head twisting away as if offering better access.

"Hey now..." He chuckled at her. "What are you doing?"

"Being curious." Was her simple response. She expected to be nervous, but she found herself made assertive by the demanding feeling in the pit of her stomach. She dared to move that little bit to be cast over his hips, her free hand bringing his face back and claiming his lips. She could have whimpered when her advances were met and encouraged, his own off hand coming out from under his head to brush down the side of her body.

She pulled back as she felt his body reacting under her, lips parted and eyes wide. Surprise coursed through, but it wasn't given much time.

He rolled over to pin her down, picking up where she'd left off. He took advantage of her parted lips, stealing the upper lip and sucking gently, leaving her to lick at his lower lip in her mouth. His hand was flattened on her stomach, flowing off to one side and covering her ribs, fingertips sneaking under her too-tight sports bra.

A soft moan came as he pressed his hips down again, the next breath a sharp gasp as he began to push the constricting garment off.

They both froze as a door slammed shut on the upper floor.

"Ann's home." Loor muttered, eyes wide.

He got off of her quickly, letting go of her hand since she'd already leached all the eco she'd need for the next few days. She got up off of the bed just as quickly, going over to the full-length mirror and giving it a push; revealing it to be the door to a closet. It was currently full of stuff, but she didn't have time to clear it right now. He dove in to hide, and she shut it behind him quietly, leaping back to her bed and settling under the blankets, making a tight fist of her hand to try and stop the bleeding.

Her heart was thudding in her chest for various reasons, shaking and sweating as she considered what had just been happening a moment ago.

She closed her eyes and tried to even her breathing as there was a soft knock on her door. "Lauren?" Ann's voice came on the other side, also soft. She didn't want to wake her little sister if she was sleeping.

The door cracked open, a small amount of light spilling through. Loor kept still, her eyes lightly shut, curled up under her blankets and nestled among her pillows.

The door shut again, and she curled up a little tighter.

* * *

**The Author's Corner**

Can anyone say 'Sexual Tension?'

Kehehehe... I love it so. I never thought this part of VoW would end up so short though... granted, it was a 'I'm doing this because I can' part of the old story. It killed me to get rid of it, plus I had no idea what I'd do with the empty space between Jak II and Jak 3... but really, this is an intermission. I'm letting everyone catch their breath before we go charging into the next part.

Or lose it in the case of this chapter. I couldn't resist.

-Loor


	13. Vacation Log

**I do not own Jak... because if I did he would have been half-naked in all of the games, and you all know it. MUHUHAHAHAHAHAAAA. Seriously. Someone make the cheat 'toggle Jak's clothes' and I will love you until the world ends. **

**Vacation or War- Return  
****Chapter Thirteen- Vacation Log**

Lauren blessed her general paranoia, since it led to her keeping first aid in her room. Her sock drawer was also home to gauze, ointment, basic disinfectant, cotton balls, and medical tape. Why? Because when she spent every night she possibly could outside in the woods, she had to be prepared in cause her feet ran into a rough stump or patch of thorns; leaving her room with bleeding cuts would be more than cause for question if she was caught. Now that supply was put to good use to patch up her hand, doing so quickly and quietly in the darkness as she still heard her sister moving about just outside her door.

Disinfected, wrapped in gauze, and taped tight, she pulled on the right glove from a set of loose fingerless gloves to cover the bandage and hide it from obvious view. Once she was taken care of she took her supplies over to the closet, gently sliding the door open and finding Jak laying inside on his back, looking up at her for direction. He also had his fist clenched, trying to stop the bleeding on his own.

She put a finger up to her lips in the dim light, a signal to be silent, before reaching out for his hand and wrapping him up in the same way. She didn't have a set of gloves for him, but that didn't really matter since no one was supposed to see him anyway. Once she was done she and had returned her kit to her dresser she came back to the closet; she still had to clear it out for him.

Before she could motion him out so she could get started on that process, he took her hand and tugged her into the dark space. He had another kiss waiting, distracting her from the task at hand as the new angle led to experimentation. Her other arm had come down to hold her weight above him, her forearm curling around his head as the hand he still held was placed on his chest.

She was reminded that she hadn't found a shirt for him; he was laying in her room in all of his half-naked glory. Or, more precisely, her closet.

Breaking away, she screwed her eyes shut while convincing herself that any further intimacy was currently counter productive. "Enough." She whispered, cursing quickly and quietly before and after the word.

"You keep saying so..." His voice was also down to a hiss, desire turning his tone rough. He still clasped her wrist, and guided her hand down his stomach. Her palm passed over knotted abdominal muscles, a short trail of navel hair, onto the night pants she borrowed him and leaving her where his want had taken a very hard and physical presence. "But I don't believe you."

She was split between the urge to rub him and the compulsion to rip her hand away and thump him on the chest. He was supposed to be hiding, and here he was trying to tease while her sister was just outside the door. It was only when she forced herself to think about both of the options that she chose neither, simply and gently lifting her hand away from him while bumping noses. "What you believe don't change the facts." She growled back.

"Tell me you don't want to, and I'll be nice." He was quietly snickering.

She let out a thick sigh; the truth was that her body was practically a painful and electrically charged knot of hot excitement. She could feel Lyra's lust as well, the animal recently revitalized by the eco they'd taken from him, the two sets of emotions compounding on each other and making the hand she'd pulled away from him shake a little bit with the urge to return and tease him into submission. "Already told you I ain't gonna lie to you." She answered. "I just don't trust either of us to take it easy once the ball gets rolling."

"You started it." He was smirking at her still, despite the fact that she was disallowing any further play.

"I was curious..." She trailed off, not mentioning the exact lines of her own experiences into the wonderful world of sex. It was not a topic that would help her calm down; she knew for a fact that discussing such things would serve to have the opposite effect. "Just go sit on my bed while I clear this crap out and set up a place for you to sleep. And sit down slowly; the mattress squeaks really easily."

"Okay, okay, I'm going." He acted like he was huffy, sitting up from the mound of stuff inside the closet and daring to catch another kiss on his way out, making it quick for fear of getting his lip bitten and doing as he was told; going to her bed and laying down as quietly as he could.

Grumbling to herself she hauled out all of the contents of the closet; the floor was covered in at least six inches of clothes, and under that was a store of forgotten stuffies, children's books, a lost math textbook from the fifth grade that she'd forgotten about that the school had never billed her for, and all other manner of things. They were easily shuffled from the storage space of her closet to under her bed, shoved under as far as possible with her foot. Once she'd emptied the space she came to her bed to take some of her extra blankets and pillows, quickly turning the narrow space into a make-shift bed.

It actually looked kinda cozy. She'd slept that way before; it was quite comfortable, but her mother wouldn't stand to see her sleep in her closet when she had a perfectly good queen sized bed.

Her cat, who had taken refuge under the bed, scrambled out and mewed sleepily before turning and crawling up on top of the bed.

She got up once everything was set, folding the corner of the blankets so the door would still slide easily. "Okay... That's all I can do for ya..." Turning she saw him moving to return to the hidden space, snagging him in a quick hug once he was standing. It did nothing to bring down her heart banging against her chest, but it made some amends for her starting shit. It was her own quiet way of thanking him for coming after her; what had been a dark night in which all was lost now gave her hope of survival.

She was going back to Haven. She was going to become a part of his time. She would still have to abandon friends and family, but not in death.

He returned the hug with a gentle rub to her back. The two parted silently, Lauren returning to her bed and her computer. The CPU was on but the monitor had remained off this whole time. He laid down and gently shut the door, hiding himself from view as she set to typing something on the machine that crouched like an ugly beast on her desk.

As to the question of what she was typing up, the answer was quite simple. Loor's computer was a maze of passwords and keys on select disks around her room. It was how she kept her things safe; another direct sign of her paranoia over her own work and having a brother who liked to snoop a lot. Each file had some wrinkle or another to it, depending on how important it was to her. She never deleted anything; all of her records were kept safe and sound on her system no matter how outdated they were.

Tonight, that changed. Pass codes were disabled. Files were deleted, a flush-program used to permanently remove things from the system. Hidden files were switched off, more codes undone, till only two folders remained on her black screen of a desktop.

These two were the ones with the greatest amount of protection; things held the most dear to her. One was the file containing her journals; logs on her own mental condition in an attempt to keep control of her mind and prevent it from splitting. She could leave that one the way it was.

The other was clearly labeled: _Project VC._ Everything that had led up to the creation of the VC-M1, along with all of it's other models, was here. From A1 through to N7, all of her failed attempts until the final design that she finally tested outside of her stupid little control box. Pictures, text files, notes, attempted test after test after test... all under her passwords and a disk-key. The disk-key was unique because instead of being on a CD it was on a floppy; an orange hunk of plastic that she kept in her desk drawer next to her extra USB storage device.

She wanted to delete the file; strip it of all it's protection and toss it out into cybernetic oblivion.

Instead she switched it to hidden, turning the feature back on. She couldn't bring herself to destroy the records of what was, and would likely always be, one of her greatest achievements.

She then went to the file containing her journals. She removed the multiple pass codes and replaced it with just one password. If someone really wanted to know what happened to her, she figured she'd leave a trail of some kind.

After that, she opened a new document within the file and began to type. She didn't plan on sleeping; she wanted to get it all down. Her own story, as true as she remembered it. The war that had taken place over the last few weeks of her summer vacation, the city she'd found herself in... the city she'd be going back to when it was all done.

And the hero she'd fallen for. For hours she was seated at her desk, the keyboard in her lap, her wrists long cramped and the tips of her fingers going numb. Her neck was knotted, her back complaining against being hunched over for so long. Now and again her eyes drifted to close, but she refused the option of sleep as she continued to write. She wasn't trying to tell the world, or even her family and friends. She was just trying to lay it all out straight for herself, perhaps. And if one of them found it down the line, after she'd vanished from this time line, maybe they would understand.

Her hands felt icy, her thumbs and index fingers completely numb as the first light began to shine on the blanket she had placed over her east-facing windows. Still she worked, wavering over the keyboard now and again but staying bull-headed in her mission.

Brighter light gave her room a dim yellow glow; it hurt her eyes and made her want to burrow under the pillows that remained on her bed... but she couldn't stop. She was almost done, and there was one last thing she had wish to add at the end. If anyone _did_ read of her life, her adventure through time, she wanted them to know what she'd learned about the future of her own time. War was coming, a conflict that would lead up to the calamity and the coming of the precursors. When it would happen, and what the war was over, she hadn't the slightest clue, but she did know that anyone who survived would have had to go somewhere where bombs would not have been dropped.

Places where people didn't normally live; likely the polar ice caps. Very far north, or extremely far south. Perhaps southern Africa would be left out of the carnage, what with the underdeveloped countries lacking nuclear capability, but she feared any place that was part of the 'inhabited' world would be part of the danger zone.

As she came to where she was currently in her life, back and home and planning to leave, she added the warning. She foretold the calamity, the destruction it would cause, and the best way to avoid getting killed instantly.

She saved it, getting her normal USB storage and copying her folder of journals over into it. She'd leave the USB with Damian; he'd either crack the password and share the information, or keep it safe after she was gone. She didn't care either way.

She'd leave it out of her hands. Beyond her control.

After all of that, saving and shutting down the computer and placing the USB device to leave on her desk at the moment, she finally collapsed back onto her bed.

She knew she'd have to be up again in an hour to take care of the various animals and pets of the house, but for now she could indulge in the sweet solace of sleep.

Her bed felt annoyingly cold, and it wasn't because she'd shifted some of the blankets to the closet. Her body still had a wish for physical contact with the person she'd hidden away. Not necessarily a craving for a sexual touch, but just the general want to be next to him.

He was so warm. That warmth had a way of calming her down.

* * *

Jak had been awake for several hours, staring up at the upper reaches of the closet he'd been confined to until otherwise okay-ed to move. Usually he'd be willing to risk more, but Loor had stressed the fact that his presence would be unwanted and ultimately unexplainable. Still, his complacence with her request didn't change the fact that his body was reminding him that food, water, and the occasional trip to the bathroom were requirements of life.

That was just his needs, though. Wants also coursed through his mind an hour after Loor had sent him to the hidey-hole she'd made up for him. He may have only known her for about a month, but a lot of living had been packed into that short window of time. It felt longer than that, and he'd be the first to put it up for grabs that he felt something for her that was a lot more than 'like.'

Physical affection had been something they'd hadn't the time for before, so the craving he was given from the few intimate moments they'd spent was beyond insane. Even without the ability to hear his darker self anymore, drained of eco and unable to engage the animal in direct conversation, he could feel himself burning. He wanted her.

All of this made it rather difficult to fall asleep in the first place when she sent him into hiding. Even worse when he knew she hadn't gone to sleep; he could hear the sound of typing for the full hour he'd spent awake before finally dozing off.

Waking up again, he still heard that sound. Had she slept at all?

He had to guess not; she hadn't been aware enough to notice when he cracked the closet door to look at her. She was hunched over her keyboard, fingers typing away quickly and not pausing or faltering at any point. She was logging something that required no thought, just recording.

Her eyes were also quite nearly closed.

He pulled back into the closet to leave her be. He heard it when she finally stopped typing and fell back into her bed, the mattress protesting with several squeaks. Loor's pet, who had been seating just behind his owner, had protests of his own as she nearly landed on him. Jumping away and yowling, the animal mewed plaintively for several moments before going quiet...

And then complaining again at the door of the closet. Jak had been surprised by the animal, but let it in anyway. It was fuzzy, warm, and happy to snuggle up with him and go back to sleep, purring as Jak pushed the door closed once more.

And there he'd laid for the past hours. Staring up, petting Loor's furry pet, and trying to ignore the fact that he really needed a bathroom. He'd dozed off a few times, but waiting made those few hours seem a lot longer. With how long it had been without a sign of life from outside the room, Jak was just starting to consider leaving the room anyway to find the facilities when, stopping him in his thoughts and making him go tense, he heard the sound of Loor's door opening.

"Lauren?"

The same voice that had asked for her the night before; Jak had to assume that this was Loor's elder sister, Ann. He held perfectly still, suddenly realizing the animal in his lap was not the best thing in the world. If the creature woke up and started mewing, he would be discovered. With that thought, he didn't dare stop petting the animal.

"C'mon Lauren, wake up. I let you sleep all day... though it looks like you've been up and just didn't leave your room."

There was a beat of silence before something on Loor's bed moved, identified by the shifting of blankets and the squeak of the mattress.

"Get called in...?" The younger quested. Her voice was still groggy.

"Picked up a shift for a friend. Figured I'd wake you before I took off. Are you... okay? Last night you were... well..." There was a pause as the elder had trouble finding the words. "Are you feeling better?"

"Incredibly, actually. Did you do the animals?"

"Yeah, but you still get the night run. I'm not lugging water out there."

Loor was waking up quickly, her voice getting less groggy and her speech coming faster as things got up to speed. Jak remembered that trait of her; once she was up, she was up. She never lingered very long in her bunk back at the underground once she was officially awake.

"When are you due home?" Was the next question she had for her sister, though it held no tone of planning. No, she sounded like a younger sister curious on when her elder sister would be returning to her.

"Midnight, probably. They got me till close."

An irritated sigh, but it could have been from either of them.

"They're killing ya. I'll try and be sleeping by the time you get home."

"Are you sure you're not sick? You've been sleeping so much... I'm tempted to check you for mortal wounding."

"I'm fine." The younger snickered. "Go, go, you'll be late."

"_Eat_ something." Ann stressed. "You've been cooped up in here all day, I'm surprised you didn't wake up out of hunger with how much you've been packing away lately."

Jak winced as his own gut made noise at the thought of food. He was sure someone would have heard it, but Ann clearly didn't because she lingered only a moment more to hug her sister before leaving the room. He waited a minute or so more, listening as he heard the big door upstairs shutting, before letting himself out of the closet.

Loor was still sitting up in bed, staring off into space. She didn't seem to notice that he'd gotten up, off and thinking.

He'd disturb her after he'd paid a visit to the bathroom just down the hall.

* * *

**The Author's Corner**

I'M BAAAAAAaaaaAAACK!

Hokay so for those who don't look at my DA who might've been wondering where I vanished to, Loor's man took a visit home. She was very... busy. Yes. I only get to see him like two months out of every year, so when he visits home I kinda drop everything and spend as much time as I can with him. I've done it at the sacrifice of friends, family respect, and God knows what else. But hey... when you only get so much time, you use it, hai?

Yesh... Yesh I do. It was just short of two weeks this time, and HELL I am feeling good now. Let's GET ON WITH THIS SHIT!

-Loor


	14. Restraint

**I don't own Jak. **

**Vacation or War- Return  
****Chapter Fourteen- Restraint**

When Jak returned to the room, Loor had a phone pressed to her ear. She was once again flopped back on her bed, staring at the ceiling while talking to someone.

"Yeah, I need to talk to you man. You free today?"

He came over to the bed, shutting the door behind him at he entered the room before sitting down by her feet and watching her. She looked exhausted, but it sounded like she was already making plans other than going back to sleep.

"I can bike over. I'm serious, I need to see you... like now. What's going on over there? I can hear your hand sliding over the speaker. Did you think you were being sneaky? Who else is there?"

Another pause. Jak could hear a male voice on the other end if he listened hard enough. It had to be her friend, Damian. He was somewhat curious about the people she hung out with, seeing as she used to be the most socially awkward thing on earth. Daxter had joked that out of her, but he wondered just who got to be friends with a shut-in.

"Dude, I don't have time. Mom and Dad will be coming home tomorrow night, school starts the day after, and two days after that..." She cut herself off, coughing slightly. "That's what we need to talk about. What the hell are you so freakin' worried about?"

Jak moved slightly, leaning off to the side before flopping down next to Loor. This was in part because he didn't know what else to do with himself while he waited for her to be done on the phone, but also because he wanted to hear what was being said on the other side of the line. He was so used to comm. units and being able to hear the whole conversation. Getting only half of it was weird to say the least. Sadly, even at her side, he couldn't hear the voice much better.

But Loor could hear it just fine, and started laughing. "Oh, I'm _sorry." _She said with true humility. "Dude, all you had to say was that you had a _girl_ over and I woulda backed off. No, it's cool, it's alright. When she going home? I can trot over then... okay. What time is it now...? Mmmhm... so a couple of hours. Alright, it won't be dark yet, I can still bike over. Great. See you then."

"Your friend?" He asked.

"Yeah." She answered, putting the cordless phone aside and resuming her staring contest with the ceiling. "Who'd a thunk that he'd dive right back into romance _before_ school started? Kid likes the notoriety... won't say so directly, but he likes his lady-killer rep. Still, he usually likes it when I know who he's going out with so when he comes to me for advice I got a better grip on the situation... must be someone I already know."

He had no idea what to say to that, and it seemed he didn't actually need to talk. She had enough words for the two of them, puzzling the trivial situation out loud before looking over to him.

Of course, finally making eye contact with him brought her to notice that he was staring at her intently. He was being patient, but there was something on his mind.

She had to laugh at herself, giving a light hit to her own forehead. "Food?"

He cracked a small smile, giving a nod. With her sister safely out of the house, Loor had no apprehension as she got up and opened the door again, leading the way upstairs.

The main level of Loor's home had linoleum floors with what might have once been a floral pattern but had been walked on so much it was just off-white with flecks of green and swirls of faded red. It was an open room, the entry way to the house and the big heavy door anyone could hear opening and closing hedged off by a small hallway. The sliding door was on the other end, the glass offering a view of the back yard over the rear deck from the dining table. Beyond that was the kitchen, only slightly separated from the rest by an arm of counter space reaching in and making the division.

Coming up the stairs, Loor's eyes caught on the large mirror that was hung just short of the entry hall. She saw herself, wearing a baggy T shirt and night pants, black roots growing into dirty blond hair, a single glove on her right hand, and multicolored eyes staring back at her. She was a strange thing to be seen in her own home, and this was the first time she'd glanced into that mirror without all of her things to hide what she really looked like. It was disturbing.

A moment later, he stepped up behind her. He didn't see what made her stop at the top of the stairs at first, instead looking around the main floor and enjoying the fact that he could actually see what her home looked like now in full light. It was only when he was thinking to give her a push up the final step that he noticed the large reflective surface.

He didn't take too much time with his own reflection; not much had changed about him in the transition. Hair, skin, and eyes had all remained, his ears just looked funny and short... and he was walking around without a shirt and in a borrowed set of night-pants. All he could say about that was it was better than how he had arrived.

But she was quite clearly focused on her image in the mirror.

"What's wrong?" He asked.

She blinked, shaking her head and mounting the final stair. "Not wrong. Just different."

He nodded slightly at she entered the kitchen and began busying herself. He thought to follow her, but figured he'd just get in the way. Instead he stood in the middle of the main floor and looked off to the right. There was the mirror she'd gotten caught in, the entry hall, but also a rail along the wall that led back to another set of stairs, right next to the ones going down, going up. With nothing else to do and a small measure of curiosity, he continued to the upper floor.

The stairs going up, and the upper floor, were hard wood. There was a rail on either side, the banister under his left hand being the one he'd seen along the wall, the one on the right facing the room and open air. The upper floor was not separated from the lower floor by a wall, the railing on the right just making a square turn and keeping the edge of the upper floor safe. Looking back down, he could see Loor in the kitchen, pulling things out of the refrigerator before pausing to turn on a small TV that was next to the stove.

Turning forward once more, the upper floor was a living room. There was a couch and a large cushy chair in front of another large sliding door, leading to an upper level for the back deck. A rug sat in the middle, a large TV across from the seating, and another hallway off to the left of the stairs.

Jak had been about to look down this hallway when he noticed the photos hung on the wall. The hall had pictures of several people, and he skimmed over them while looking for something interesting. There was a boy with long hair pulled back into a straight pony tail with extremely blue eyes, a girl with bronze-blond hair hanging down to her tush and a stunning smile, a blond man and a black haired woman with glasses sitting together...

And a blond girl with intense blue eyes, a big smile and a strong jaw line. Jak could surmise that all of these were family photos. The man and the woman were Loor's parents; Loor had a face very similar to her mother's. The others were pictures of herself and her siblings.

The long haired girl was her big sister, Ann. The boy, her elder brother; Paul.

Which meant this little blond girl in the photo had to be her, once upon a time. It took him a few moments to see it, but the face was the same. So was the smile. Even if the eyes and hair had changed so dramatically, and she'd grown older, he could recognize her.

No wonder she'd stopped and stared at the mirror. She was probably struck with the differences every time she saw any sort of reflective surface.

Loor hadn't been paying the slightest bit of attention to where Jak got off to once she started cooking. She'd started a pot of water that she'd added flavor packs from two packages of ramen to, and just turned on the TV while fetching a pan from under the stove. Being a few hours after noon there wasn't much on, but changing the channel over to PBS let her catch the tail end of a news hour.

Not that she had much interest in current events, but it gave her brain something to pay attention to as she got the pan to warm up and got the eggs out of the refrigerator, along with mushrooms and green onions.

She nearly jumped out of her skin when she felt a set of hands on her shoulders. Perhaps she should have been getting used to it, but she'd thought she was alone in the house again for just a moment. She was so used to being alone. After a gasp of surprise and nearly dropping the eggs she looked up to find Jak behind her, chuckling at her dramatic reaction.

She giggled at herself, shaking her head and returning to her culinary work.

"It's gonna be tough leaving all this behind, isn't it?"

She didn't answer at once. She'd cracked two eggs into a measuring glass and gotten a whisk to beat them into orange goo, reaching for the spice cabinet to add salt, pepper, and a little curry. The pot of water had begun to steam.

"Not as hard as I thought. Before I left, the idea of running away was insane. I knew I couldn't make it on my own, and I love my family very much. It's more than a roof over my head, the people here..." She put the beaten eggs aside, starting to chop mushrooms after pulling a knife from a nearby block. "Now, I know I can't live with them. I was going to leave this life behind either way... last night..."

She trailed off, focusing on slicing the last of the mushrooms and dumping them into the now simmering water.

"The eco made my body grow up, but the war matured my mind." She finally said. "I've always been about what needed to be done, but now I have the resolve to do it. Before... I would know what had to go down, but I'd just hide under my pillow and wait for someone else to do it, tell myself it was too big for a kid like me. And in Haven I tried to do that. I tried to back off on my first missions... but somewhere in there a shift happened. I didn't have the comfort of being a child anymore."

He nodded, holding her shoulders again. They both knew where that shift happened; when they'd been ambushed by the KG and she'd been forced to take her first human life. A lot of things had changed about her that day.

"I just wish..." She stopped, checking the mushrooms and dropping the noodle block of ramen into the broth. She waved a hand over the frying pan, which was on a low burner, and gave the eggs one last stir before dumping them into the pan. They sizzled quietly, and she added another puff of curry to the top.

"What?"

"I've seen the end of this world, in a sense. Between research with Vin and some of my own puzzling, I know that the world as I know it is going to destroy itself. Armageddon. Rapture. I don't care what you call it, it's coming. I'm getting out of here, and that's fine for me, but... I wish I knew _when_ it was coming. I want to see my friends and family safe. There _are _survivors, they go on to make the future you're from. Sandover, Rock Village, and then go ahead another few hundred years and there's Haven..." She started chopping the green onions, taking a wooden spoon and stirring the noodles. "I have no idea if my family survived. I could have nieces and nephews, so many generations down it would make _my_ head hurt. I wish I could somehow see them safe."

She then allowed herself a short giggle, shaking her head with a strange smile on her face. He gave her a look, questioning what she found so funny all of the sudden. It usually took someone else to pull her out of her serious mood, and here she was snickering at something that crossed her mind.

She responded to his look, her smile growing twisted. "I once had the off-the-wall thought that Vin and I might've been related. I really doubt it, but it is possible. No way to check, the metal heads probably didn't leave much of him for DNA swabbing, but interesting to say the least."

"Doesn't that mean you could have been related to Errol, too?"

She choked on that one, twisting her head a little bit to stare at him and glare a little. It was a playful glare though. Just seemed a little more dangerous since she had a knife in her hand.

Rolling her eyes, she put on a new smirk. "For all you know, buddy boy, I'm related to you or Daxter. And it's so many generations down it really doesn't matter." She returned her attention to her cooking. The noodles were boiling furiously now, and she dropped in the chopped green onion with another stir of the pot while checking the eggs; a flat patty had cooked through to show brilliant yellow with specks of orange curry powder. Turning away from the stove and breaking his hold, she got a plate to dump the eggs out onto and began quickly cutting them into strips, slicing the whole patty down the middle once the longer strips were cut.

As she stirred the noodles once more, she looked over to the TV which was still playing the news.

"I wonder what started it..." She mused. "A war started that got us all to kill each other, but what would have it been over? Every nuclear nation let their bombs fly, it had to have been for a good reason..."

"You think too much." He now slid his arms around her middle, resting his forehead against the back of her head. "Calm down and just let it go."

"What else am I supposed to think about?" She huffed. "Keeping my mind busy is all I can do to keep from going insane with _you_ around."

He moved his head to rest on her shoulder at her accusing tone. "Me? What did _I_ do?"

She snorted, turning off the burner under the noodles. "Is that a trick question?" She slid the pan away from the hot surface and onto a cold burner so the noodles wouldn't overcook. "Or did you honestly forget where you put my hand last night?"

"I didn't forget." He snickered, bending down to her shoulder and brushing smiling lips against her skin. "I didn't think it would bother you all that much though... you told me you had all sorts of interesting ideas in your head; didn't think I could make you nervous."

"Fantasies are one thing... particularly since I came up with them when I still thought you were nothing but a fictional hero. Actually..." She cleared her throat, skipping around using all of the words. "... touching is a whole 'nother ball game."

Palms flattened on her stomach, sliding up to her ribs and slightly under the doughy mass on her chest. Her body responded with fire, burning up the air in her lungs and making her draw a quick and hardly satisfying breath. He was right next to her ear, having nosed under her hair and still smiling. "Impressed?" He questioned.

She growled softly at her reactions. Somewhere, deep in all of the synaptic matter of her brain, floated the thought that this was hardly the time nor place for this sort of thing... but that thought was outside of her focus and probably being hidden by Lyra, because she leaned back on him while her free hand reached up and tangled in his hair. "... Possibly curious..." She muttered, her other hand dropping the spoon she'd be stirring with to come and rest over his.

Again her breathing seemed inefficient as he kissed her neck. A strange tingle took on her skin that begged for further attention, but he held off and chuckled at her.

"Food?" He asked, releasing her.

She felt like doing a double-take. At once Lyra expressed extreme frustration, and though Loor agreed with her for once he did have a point. What had been threatening to be a glare took into a small smirk. "Proving you've got control, huh?"

"That and I'm _really_ hungry."

She scoffed slightly, turning from the stove to get bowls for the noodles.

She was too, but not exactly for food.

* * *

**The Author's Corner**

Yeah... book 2 was always the biggest cock tease. You know what's fucked up though? It is SCARY how much my actual boyfriend reminds me of Jak. This may be the musings of a crazed fangirl but a lot of what I describe here comes from my own relationship, and IT FUCKING FITS. WTF?

Seriously... I sometimes wonder if I dreamed that man up. He's so perfect to me. Sure we got our issues and the occasional fight, but what couple doesn't? At the end of the day, the days I get to spend with him anyway, he is the most perfect blanket/pillow on the planet.

Oh yeah. If someone see's Loor using the word prodigious, blame it on the fact that I'm WATCHING THE ORIGINAL DIGIMON SERISE. HOLY NESTALGIA.

I was so hot for Tai... and Izzy. Mainly Izzy. Tai was funny but Izzy was smart. I like smart guys.

MEOW!

-Loor


	15. Seeing Scents

**I don't own Jak.**

**Vacation or War- Return  
****Chapter Fifteen- Seeing Scents**

"So this is what you do all day?"

"Well usually I'd be working... but we both know how my last project turned out. But yeah, when I decide to kick back and relax, this _is_ what I do... when I'm not outside."

"Can I give it a try?"

After food and in desperate need of a distraction, Loor had turned to video games. They had another two hours to kill before it was safe to go see Damian, so she'd tossed in God of War and picked up where she left off. She'd gotten her copy of Jak II back from Fury before she'd gone to the hospital, but both it and the first game had been tucked into her room since she'd gotten back home. She hadn't wanted to look at them when she'd still been alone, and now that he was here she was almost embarrassed for him to see how she knew his time.

The games were in the main room of the lower level, a medium sized TV on a desk with both the PS2 and the Gamecube next to it. Seated closer than most people would prescribe, Loor had the large chair in the room scooted almost all the way up to the desk with an extra pillow on the back and a blanket over the top. This was for two reasons; one was that the TV was older and had pixels the size of legos, the other was that being closer to the desk meant she didn't have to reach very far when she wanted some of the pop she'd cracked open for herself.

Of course she wasn't hogging all this. The chair was almost as wide as a loveseat, and she was quite happily seated on Jak's lap. She was also sharing her drink, since he'd never had anything close to soda before. He didn't seem to hate it, but she noticed he wasn't asking for it either.

She was also thankful that he was keeping his hands to himself at the moment.

"Oh, I guess so. You want me to put it back at the beginning?" She couldn't help an apprehensive tone. She was bad at handing over the controller.

"Will it make any more sense?"

"No, probably not... but I always liked this game more for mindless pummeling. Going back to the beginning just gives you a chance to learn the controls before enemies try to rip your eyes out."

"No wonder your so violent." He teased, reaching for the controller only for her to pull it out of his reach.

"Hey! I'll hand it over in a second. And I had anger issues _before_ I even knew how to hold a control!" She rolled her eyes, skipping on finding a place to save and returning to the main menu to start a new game. She wouldn't admit it outloud, but the game violence didn't give her the same enjoyment as it used to. "I might... take a nap or something though."

"Why?" He asked as she finally handed the black hunk of plastic over. Neither were particularly paying attention to the opening scene. The fact that Kratos had just taken a walk off of a cliff didn't seem to bother either of them.

"I'm not good at sitting and watching. Either you're going to fail super hard and I'd feel bad for wanting to laugh, or you're gonna be a natural and I'll be pissed off because it took me years of practice before I was any good at games. And in the case that you totally fail I'll just wanna steal the controller back and do it right."

"Just as long as you don't leave." He sighed, not questioning what she said. She acted similarly in the real world; if she knew how to do something she wanted to do it, and if someone was besting her she tended to be a little sore. Not a bad sport or anything, she never made up excuses for failure, but she would get irritated.

"Why would I do that?" She turned her body away from the TV, instead nuzzling under his neck and re-arranging herself in his lap. Taking a moment more to pull the blanket up around her shoulders, she relaxed and tried not to ponder the noises from the TV or assess his gaming skills.

Sadly, giving up the control deprived her of distracting material. He'd shifted to lean on one armrest as she cast her legs over the other side, making his shoulder an even more accessible place to rest her head as he reached around her to hold the controller, resting it on her hip. The problem? As comfortable as the whole set-up was, she couldn't help but think about the night before.

She wanted to bite him again. She _liked _the way he reacted to it, despite fearing what would likely happen if they went down that road. It made her want to lift a hand and strike her head, but he didn't like it when she did that, and she'd already wrapped her arms around his middle while getting comfortable.

Another thought crossed her mind. She could pull one of her hands free, start at his chest and rub down his body. Did he enjoy being touched as much as she learned she was liking it? She feared doing something weird and getting laughed at, but that idea seemed a bit more passive than laying her teeth into his neck again. She was lucky she hadn't left marks last time.

"What the hell is _that_ thing?"

She let her ears wander for a moment, snickering to herself. "Hydra."

He chuckled slightly, though it trailed off at the end. "Heh... how do I kill it?"

"No worries, the game isn't that bad at in-fight direction."

She felt his head bob to nod a little, but he went quiet again, clearly concentrating. By the sound of it he wasn't doing horrible, but he wasn't breezing through either.

And she was still nuzzled up just under his jaw line. She wondered how he'd react to her trying to distract him. She was right there, his smell getting caught up in her nose and making her restraint all the more strained. Heat spread up and down her spine that was likely Lyra's doing, but she didn't really care.

No, she knew the tortured and twisted knot in her guts was of her own emotions, Lyra was just trying to drive her to do something about it.

"We should get you some real clothes." She murmured, imagining that her voice sounded rather drowsy when the truth was it was all she could do to think of something else. "A shirt, at least..."

"Now?" He questioned. He didn't sound irritated, but there was the hint of a whine that he was starting to have some fun.

"I can go and do it myself." She snickered. "I'm just gonna go steal something from my brother's room. You're kinda short so you won't fit his jeans, but the shirts should be okay."

"Yeah, I noticed the pants were a bit big... you borrow from your brother a lot when he's gone?"

"I'm the only one with official permission to go into his room while he's at boot camp. I don't think he expected me to use it like this, but someone had to be charged with keeping mom out of there."

"Left it in a bit of a mess, huh?"

"That and I'm pretty sure he's worried she's gonna go snooping and find his stash of condoms in his top dresser drawer. I didn't know about it either till I was in there looking for an extra set of batteries for my gameboy..." She shuddered, not wanting to think about the fact that her brother, who lived in the room right above her, might've brought girls home and she never noticed. The box was open and half empty the last she saw of it.

"Condoms?" Curiosity in his voice made her look up at him, blinking a few moments before she realized; Jak grew up in Sandover. A primeval village setting where couples cranked out as many children as possible because most of them were going to be lost to disease and accidents and predators before the age of ten. Birth control was abstinence.

"Nevermind." She said, not wanting to explain. Instead she scooted back off of his lap enough that the majority of her weight was over the edge of the chair cushion, letting her slide out from under his arms and onto the floor.

Squirming out from under the blanket and getting up she saw that he'd found the pause button and was looking at her inquisitively.

"I'll be right back." She snickered, reaching back and ruffling his hair. "I just wanna be ready when we can finally go."

He shook his head to get his hair back out of his face; without his goggles a lot of it fell in front of his face with very little provocation, and then nodded with a slight wave. "No hiding."

"Promise." She snickered, thought that practically was what she was doing. She just needed a few seconds to breathe air that _wasn't_ laced with his smell. She tried not to climb the stairs too quickly while wondering just why he drove her so crazy. They'd been practically living together during their time in the underground and she'd never gone this nuts.

Of course, every night spent at the hideout was after a full day of metal head hunting, stressing over the guard and Errol, her own extra stress over her effect on the time-line, and so on. At that point she hadn't been able to refuse her attraction to him, and now they'd been given a clean and restful setting that was relatively stress-free compared to before.

And he was going to be living in her closet for the new few days. Loor naturally had a sensitive nose, but Lyra's senses had been bleeding through over time. It wouldn't be long till her whole room reeked of him, and for some reason his scent was both a massive distraction and a slightly arousing addition to the air.

Was it the same for him? She had to wonder, but she certainly wasn't going to ask since she couldn't figure out how to word it.

She'd gotten up the second set of stairs by now, digging through her brother's room at the end of the hallway and coming up with a black shirt from a Disturbed concert her brother had attended a year ago.

Her enhanced nose found her brother's smell quite perturbing. But maybe that was because his room had always smelt like a shoe to her. Taking the shirt, she moved to return downstairs.

Slowly.

* * *

It was about an hour later that Loor pulled out her bike and her bother's for her and Jak to ride over the Damian's house. She also got reflective belts in case the ended up staying too late; it was never a good idea to beg disaster with twilight only another hour or so off. It didn't take Jak very long to figure out a bicycle, and once he did she was able to set the pace at whatever she wished; he was more than capable of keeping up.

Damian's house was about half an hour north of Loor's on bikes, and it was a great summer day to be out and cycling. Both she and he lived out in the boonies, not once encountering more than one car at a time on the roads that curved slightly through tree-covered country. They passed a few small farms with fenced enclosures and animals like sheep and horses.

It wasn't half-way before Loor dropped her hands off of the handles, something she did automatically because it hurt the very front of her hips and her back to sit hunched over for very long. Her big brother had showed her how to ride without hands a long time ago. Jak saw and tried to imitate her, and almost went careening off the road the first time. After some laughter and a brief explanation of the basic principals of the technique, he got it pretty easily.

Actually arriving at Damian's home, Loor held a small smile at a place she hadn't seen in what felt like the longest time. It was a modest home with a single floor above ground and what she knew to be a mostly unfinished basement underneath. There were currently no cars in the dirt driveway, meaning that neither of Damian's parents were currently home.

Dismounting and walking the bikes up to the cement sidewalk around the house, Loor put down the kickstand on hers and approached the front stoop, and the door, while Jak tried to figure out what she'd done to get her bike to stand on it's own. She'd flipped the little metal bar down in one fluid motion.

On habit, she opened the thicker outside door and knocked on the inside one. She knew better than to let herself in; Damian had four dogs of the larger size that would pounce upon unidentified guests.

As usual, she could hear all of those dogs howling at the door the moment she knocked. She expected the door to open a few moments later, but was surprised when there was no immediate answer. She knocked again after waiting a little while, until Jak had figured out his kickstand and joined her at the door. It was a third time before she could hear anyone even moving for the door.

Finally, it opened.

She expected that she'd come too early; it would be the only reason Damian would stall on opening the door. He still didn't want her to know who he was hanging out with. Granted, she hadn't meant to come too early, so it was more that the girl he had over was staying too late. With kids their age, that would be because her ride home was late.

Lauren just wasn't expecting the girl who was behind him in the open doorway.

"Alex?"

"You didn't call." Damian said sheepishly, since Alex didn't look happy about Lauren walking in on them. The kid was trying to get fault for the current situation off of his shoulders.

"You said you'd be free by now." Loor was laughing slightly. "What's with the secrecy? Thought I wouldn't approve?"

"Something like that..." Damian muttered. "We all knew that Chelsea was crushing on me... but I was gonna ask Alex out anyway... Alex just thought it was kinda disrespectful cause you guys were all super close... and we kinda went out."

"Not really." Loor snorted, shaking her head. "Anyway, this is good. You both should know about what's going on. I told you guys about... about what happened to me, right? And Fury? The adventure?"

"Yeah." Both Alex and Damian nodded at the same time, eyes down. It was because of their time in Haven that Fury had died again in this time line. They all felt massive grief for their friend, who had only passed away the day before.

It felt like a week ago for Loor. That day, or more accurately that night, had been so full of stuff. Damian and Alex had probably come together out of the need for support, getting lost in the lovely game of romance to ignore the remorse.

"I... uh... may have left some parts out." She felt herself turning slightly red. "And those parts have kinda followed me home..." She then glanced back, stepping aside so her friends would take their eyes off of her and look to the person who had been standing behind her all along. She was surprised that neither of them had noticed him right away, but at the same time they hadn't wanted her to see them together. Her presence had taken the spotlight.

But now they focused on the other person standing on the doorstep, and it was like two other spotlights had just come on as her two friends focused on him in shock.

"Alex, Damian... this is Jak."

* * *

**The Author's Corner**

Yeah... I'm a jerk-face.

Hokay so I've been having some trouble writing of late because of a friendly disturbance between myself and Alex... No ugly details but I was forced to make a choice and she felt it was the wrong one. She's cut off contact since. I know if I want her to talk to me I'll have to go to her, but I know I have to wait it out too... if I try and do something too soon she'll just get even more mad, but I really dislike all the uncertainty. I wanna clear the air, but it seems times like these are just inevitable between us.

Maybe we're just not that compatible of people. I'm not going to cling. I've made the decision to stop obsessing and just let things go; if she feels this relationship isn't what she wants, I can understand and respect that. Maybe I'll figure it out in writing... it's how I usually figure out stuff.

I just hope she's happy and stuff. I don't want her to be mentally suffering the same way I am. As long as she's okay, I'm glad. I know a lot of people who are better off without me.

Sorry, that kinda turned into a journal-thingy... I'm just venting a little bit. ORIGHT!

Portal 2 comes out on Tuesday! So yeah... I'll probably fall off of the map for a few days. I'll see you peeps when I get back.

-Loor


	16. A Couple's Explanation

**I don't own Jak.**

**Vacation or War- Return  
****Chapter Sixteen- A Couple's Explanation**

Silence was a rare thing in Damian's home. Between two drunkard parents, a great many dogs, and the fact that his dad was part of a band that practiced fairly often in the basement, moments of quiet were hard to come by.

This moment, however, had come and was sticking around for an almost uncomfortable amount of time. Loor had pulled Jak inside as her friends were dumbfounded, taking off her shoes at the door and leading the way beyond the kitchen and into the front room. Jak stood as if he were on exhibit as Alex and Damian sat on one of the two couches, still staring up in total shock.

"Wha..." Damian finally found his tongue. "What went wrong?"

Of course he'd put that together. These two didn't know about Loor and Jak's romantic implications with each other; she hadn't told them. No, in their eyes the hero had chased down someone who didn't belong in his world in the first place, which meant she must have done something that was going to mess with the natural order of things, or fuck up the time line.

Which would have been true if she'd been able to get her hands on the converter.

"I lied to you guys." Lauren admitted, looking down.

"What about?" Damian asked as if it were no big deal. Both he and Loor had a dishonesty streak several miles long. It was Alex who took a step further into being surprised, and then began to look hurt. Betrayed.

"The device." Loor sighed, shaking her head. She didn't like ousting when she'd been hiding things, but in light of the current circumstances it was the right time to come clean. She explained about the converter being beyond her reach, and how she'd lied to everyone with the plan toremove herself from everyone's presence before she started getting sick. She'd just gotten into her suicide attempt and how Jak came just in time to save her when Damian hopped in.

"But _why_ are _you_ here?" Damian addressed Jak directly, staring at him like a kid at a rock show, meeting the lead singer. "Loor told us everything; you don't have any reason to be here... and where's Daxter?"

"Well, I may have..." Loor felt herself turning slightly red. "Left a few tiny details out."

"Onin sent me back here to make sure she wouldn't mess with the precursor tech in this time. It's all important." Jak spoke for himself, which made both Damian and Alex jump and sit back on the couch. His voice spooked them, adding to the fact that this _was_ indeed Jak himself, in the flesh. "But I also came because of my own reasons."

"Jak!" Loor snapped, having been hoping he'd leave it at the explanation from Onin.

"What?" He got a slight smile. "These are your friends, right? Can't you trust them?"

"Trust is one thing." She huffed, shaking her head and crossing her arms over her chest. "Pride is another."

"Wait... wait..." Damian was shifting his head left and right between the two of them. Loor's defensiveness had tipped him off more than what Jak had said. He would have been happy to leave it at 'the mysterious hero had his own reasons for coming back in time', but the fact that Loor had snapped at him made the whole thing transparent. "Are you two... well, dating?"

"Tough to date in the middle of a war." Lauren huffed at being found out, crossing her arms over her chest and looking _quite_ uncomfortable. "And... well..."

"I'm sure we'll get the chance sooner or later." Jak snickered, since his very suggestion of the idea made her turn quite red and turn her head slightly with the urge to hide her face. It was actually kinda fun to needle her in front of her increasingly shocked friends. Alex's jaw had come slightly open, and Damian wasn't doing much better. "They both know about my story too, don't they?"

"Oh yeah!" Damian answered, getting up from the couch. "I know more than Loor, she still hasn't played the-"

Lauren suddenly leapt over, tackling Damian and shoving her hand over his mouth. "_Shuttup!_" She snarled. "He can't know about that! He's from just after the Baron's defeat. If he knows what's coming, it might screw things up! His natural reactions are the proper ones, we can't mess with it!"

Damian kicked, but Loor had gotten stronger from her time in Haven and her grown-up body reflected it. She was also heavier than usual. As the boy eventually gave up Alex found her tongue to repeat a question that Damian had asked.

"Where's Daxter?"

"Lauren told me all about this time." Jak answered, though he was staring strangely at the tussle on the floor. "How different it was. I figured coming here and bringing her back would be more difficult with Dax around... I also figured it would only take an afternoon, but it sounds like we gotta wait a few days."

"...'we?'" Alex looked as Lauren pulled herself up and off of the floor, offering a hand to Damian to help him back up. "You're... you're going back?"

"Onin's orders were to either bring me back or neutralize me." Loor answered, though she did so slowly. Alex didn't do well with sudden changes; the girl was incredibly bi-polar, and this load of information was rude and hugely unfair to both of her friends. She would have rather kept it quiet, but it was too late now. "Whatever the case, it seems the future is okay with my existence... and I need eco. Jak's given me what I need to keep moving for another week or so, but if I want any more... if I want to survive... I have to return."

"We're gonna lose you, then. Just like Chelsea." Alex sounded crestfallen.

"You were going to lose me either way." Lauren sighed. "Alex, I'm dying. With the corruption I suffer with eco, it's only going to be a few more years anyway. I don't stand a chance in hell, but..." She looked at Jak, momentarily. "I want to live for the time I have. Last night... if Jak hadn't shown up I would have been long gone by now. They woulda found the body some weeks later in the swamp, and you'd have known that I was dead. But now, even if I'm going away, you'll know that I'm alive and doing the best I can. Isn't that better?"

"Yeah, whatever." Alex huffed, her expression twisting into something unpleasant and ultimately dead. "You should have told us the truth. We could have tried to help..."

"How? We can't touch that device; Onin says. I was wrong to even come back and try."

There was a long moment of silence. Lauren could do nothing but stare at her friend, desperate for a chance to redeem herself. She didn't want Alex to be angry with her, but she couldn't see any way to fix what she'd done.

"Let me come with." Alex said.

"What?"

The question was uttered by everyone else in the room.

"I wanna come with. I wanna see Haven, and meet the characters and have an adventure! Together, like the road trip we were always planning!" Alex's face had lit up once more with the idea. "Please, Loor? You know how I hate fighting, so I won't cause any trouble!"

Loor felt heat dripping down her spine. It was like someone was burning her, but it was spreading with gravity instead of radiating up. Worse, she froze once it had run its course. She knew that if she rejected this Alex would be inconsolable. She'd shut down, get mad, and give her the cold shoulder for weeks, even months. The worst; they didn't have the time to make up again.

But she couldn't risk taking Alex along. She was another un-calculated factor of events. No matter where she went to hide, even if she was physically safe she wouldn't be safe to the time line. The chance was too big.

"You can't."

Eyes turned to Jak.

"Why not?" Alex asked. The answer hadn't come from Loor, so the shut-down was stalled.

"The future is easy to change. One extra person..." Jak shook his head. "With the way things were when I left, it's one person too many. Maybe a few years from now, when things aren't so crazy, we'll come back for you. But right now?" He let off a sore chuckle. "If you hate fighting, you might as well camp out at home."

"Jak..." Lauren looked back at him. He was _guessing_ that things would calm down in a few years. He had no idea, and she felt terrible for getting Alex's hopes up on an off chance.

"What? This war can't go on forever. Once all that shit is over, I don't think anything is wrong with it." He then turned a smile on Alex; one that oozed bad-boy confidence. "You'll get your chance. Count on it."

Loor felt herself getting exhausted by the very thought, and it reflected in her voice when she looked over at Damian. "Don't tell me... you wanna come too?"

"Me?" Damian, who had since sat back on the couch. "If me and Alex are still together then... fuck yes. If not, I think I'll pass. It starts to look conspicuous; One girl goes missing right after her best friend is dead of an unknown illness, another girl goes missing a few years later who happens to also be friends with the one who mysteriously died? That's coincidence. Add one more person, and people who actually have brains in their skulls might come looking. Never underestimate people, even stupid people, in large numbers."

"Always trust you to wanna do damage control." Loor managed a smile. "Thanks man."

"Don't." Damian shrugged. "Going to Haven, even in peace time, would require some effort. I'd rather lay back and play games than do all the work to go there, get set up, provide for myself, and so on. But if Alex is super set on going and we're still together, you'll get me too... and I'll have to start a fire or something to get rid of all of your old devices so no one else figures it out."

"I really don't wanna wait..." Alex's voice threatened to whine, but it was in a range that was no longer putting Loor in fear of her friend having a meltdown. "You'd better not forget about me."

"Unlikely." Jak snickered. "I won't let her."

The dogs, who were all laying on the floor back in the kitchen, suddenly leapt to attention and started barking.

"My mom!" Alex jumped to her feet. "It was good seeing you Lauren... and nice to meet you, Jak." She opened up for a hug from her friend, which Lauren took with a huge sigh of relief. She feared Alex's mood swings, possibly more than she had feared Kor. Once the hug was over with Alex then turned to Jak and waved over-enthusiastically with a cattish smile. Jak gave a small wave back, Alex bent to give Damian the last hug, and trotted for the door. "Don't die before you come back for me!"

"Thanks for the confidence..." Loor muttered as Alex pushed her way past the dogs and went outside. Waiting for a moment more, she made a quick turn and collapsed on the couch, taking the space Alex had just vacated. "... Jak, why did you do that?"

"She was gonna get upset if I'd let you say no."

"But it's not as simple as she thinks it is... it's not a game, or a choice based on how much I like her. It's a much bigger thing than that, with consequences."

"Which is why we're waiting till it's safe." Jak came up to flop down between her and Damian. "Maybe you don't get this, but I've seen Keira make that face before... and when a girl makes that face, you make _damn_ sure you don't make her mad, or she'll drag you around for months as you try and try to fix it."

"Agreed." Damian conceded. "Girls are fucking crazy."

"Uh... hello?" Loor questioned, lifting her head.

"You're crazy too... in a different way." Damian snickered. "C'mon, Lauren, you know me better than to lump you in with the rest of 'em." He then looked to Jak. "That's a good tip for you if you're serious about her; don't _ever_ cite gender stereotypes, male or female, or she'll knock you one. It may be in the stomach or the shoulder, but it still hurts!"

"I already know better." Jak snickered. "You know me like she did, right? Think about Keira; she was the same way... though at least she'd still ask for help when she knew she needed it."

Loor snorted, elbowing Jak in the ribs. "I'm getting better about that..."

"Was I complaining?" He snickered. "I was just saying that you two are a tad similar."

"What happened to Keira?" Damian asked. "I mean, I know you two kinda fought during... well, the war you guys just finished, but you were supposed to make up and stuff..."

Lauren looked away, huffing slightly. "We were both part of the same science experiment... there was some sympathy."

"_Sympathy?" _Jak questioned, blinking at her. "From what I heard, you already worshiped me."

"I was talking about why you befriended me." She snorted. "There's no denying that, had there not been a war going on, I would have been kissing the ground you walked on. Either way, Damian, it's not like a seduced him or anything. We just kinda learned about each other, I let slip that I might kinda _like_ him and..."

"Jeez, she's playing that whole 'unwilling tomboy non-believer in romance' thing for all it's worth, ain't she?" Damian was snickering.

"Shoulda seen her at the victory party; tried to get me and Keira to make up, even though the whole thing was _way _off track."

"_Guys!" _The girl got up from the cough, fuming at both of them from getting teased. "You're both jerkfaces, you know that? Cute faces ain't gonna stop me from socking both of you. Goodness knows it never stopped me from whacking Daxter every now and then."

"You're so lucky he's not here to hear that." Damian pointed out. "It'd go straight to his head."

"Good point..." She finally allowed herself to laugh, relaxing out of the tense mood she'd been in since Alex had started getting upset. "Anyway, let's get down to business. We're here for more than explaining Jak and I's... position with each other."

"She's on top, right?" Damian couldn't help but ask.

"Depends on the day." Jak grinned. "The fun is in fighting over it."

"_Ooh,_ I hear good things about couples who wrestle regularly."

"I'm going to murder you both." Loor growled softly, though she got the joke. Inside, she was laughing. It was simply her reputation that drove her to threaten violence on both of them.

She'd get Jak later... with a pillow.

* * *

**The Author's Corner**

MEOW! Yes, I am back, and it's good too. I hope you guys got a laugh out of the ending bit of this chapter... I was trying to cheer myself up in the process. XDD

Kinda short chapter tho... just realized that. I sorries. MEOW!

Not much to say tonight... I work through Easter, so I hope you all have a great weekend, regardless of your beliefs and whether you're eating a holiday ham or McDonald's on Sunday. I'm gonna go to bed (right on time for once, holy wow!) so have a good night.

See ya next time,

-Loor


	17. Game Plan

**I don't own Jak.**

**Vacation or War- Return  
****Chapter Seventeen- Game Plan**

It wasn't much later that Loor made a push for them to get down to business. The three of them moved to Damian's room so she could look through his storage area for the copy of the model she wanted; anything from the VC-L1 and on had the right sized sphere, but Damian's room was hardly in better condition than her own. She insisted on inspecting the units herself and determining which one was most likely to operate smoothly, checking for dust, dings, and lint.

The guys sat on Damian's bed as she hunched over in the closet, ducked down to get her head into the box where he kept them all. His parents thought it was a toy box, where he kept all of his old Lego stuff, and he never gave them an excuse to come looking.

"What does VC even stand for?" Jak asked absently, looking at the rest of the décor of the room; Damian had a thing for Motocross... and Motocross had a thing for putting bikini girls on their posters. Daxter would have loved the place.

"Volatile Converter." Lauren answered before Damian could; she was very prideful of her work and felt no one else could explain it as well as she could. "Models A through C were focused on just trapping the electrons, and half of the time we ended up with the device popping a seam because electricity is very... well, volatile. It's tough to slow it down without expending its energy. D through F is when we started melting parts... we've had it right for months, but because I insisted on always testing it in a control box we were always missing one vital piece."

"That reminds me!" Damian bust in. "What _were_ we missing? What changed by testing it out in the open air?"

"You're gonna love this..." Lauren sighed, coming up with a device that looked very similar to the VC-M1, the ball being exactly the same size. "Hydrogen. It needed hydrogen molecules in the air to catalyze with. Testing in my box kept it completely separated from what the electrons needed to bond with in order to take a liquid form. Vin figured it out so freakin' fast..." She shook her head while removing the all-important sphere from the board of green and silver circuitry, a few simple clasps twisting away from the obvious center of the device to free the odd ball. She pushed the flat bit back into the bin she'd taken the device from, joining the guys on Damian's bed. "Of course, he went to school in Haven, knew all about eco and it's various properties... I lacked the proper background to figure it out."

"Lucky that you got to work with him." Damian noted with a smirk.

"Wish I'd gotten a longer time to pick his brain." She sighed. "We got along pretty well too. Only person who knew everything of what happened to me early on, helped a lot to keep my head on straight."

"How come you told Vin everything, but wouldn't tell me and Dax anything on account of a possible history-changing disaster?" Jak questioned while Damian took on an odd little smile. It played on his face when Loor lamented how short her time with Vin was, and made him look sly; like he knew something that they didn't pertaining to the paranoid scientist.

Considering things for a moment, the kid _did_ know something they didn't. There was a whole part of the story that Loor had been yet to discover, and he hadn't gotten there yet.

"I told Vin because I knew that he was smart enough to help me, or at least point me in the right direction." Lauren flopped onto her back now, looking exhausted again. "After I told him the story, in hopes that he'd be able to help me get home, he came up with the whole idea of my presence effecting events. He warned me about the changes I might've brought about if I wasn't careful. I'd started to get it before hand... and then it was only really solid after the confrontation I had with Errol."

"I thought you had your little face-off with him at the beginning?" Damian asked.

Loor's face turned slightly red. All the questions made her uncomfortable. "There was another one. I had the chance to kill him... but it wasn't his time yet."

Again, Damian had a sly look on his face. "Oh, right. I guess you kinda needed him to cause that explosion at the races so Jak had the time to get away, or the Baron woulda gunned him down. Jeez, Loor, how much stuff did you leave out when you told us what happened?"

"I told you the important bits." She huffed, getting up again. "Anyways, this is the one I want you to prep." She said while handing the device to him. "Get a hook-up ready; we gotta be good to go by Thursday."

"Jeez, take it easy." Damian took the little ball, staring at it in fascination. "I can't believe we had it right all along... and the world can't even know about it. Why Thursday?"

"How far into the future we get tossed is a function of how much eco is produced against the distance from the converter, or at least that's the best I can assume. This sphere is the same size as the VC-M1, and it's inner workings nearly exactly the same. It should produce the same amount that tossed me forward last time, thus traveling the same number of years, months, days, hours, and so on. The finicky part it making sure Jak and I show up either after or during the victory party. Thursday is the earliest we can safely leave, Thursday night to be exact."

"Wow... but..." Damian looked truly shocked. Today was Sunday, meaning his friend was going to be gone in less than a week. "Jeez. What are you going to do when you get back to Haven?"

"Spin my wheels... toughen up. Let this guy bat me around the gun course." She gestured to Jak, shrugging slightly. "Gotta be ready for the future."

"Or you could relax a little bit." Jak snickered, leaning back.

Damian snickered, but the noise of amusement was short-lived. He was thinking, looking at the silver ball in his hand. "Loor... the main danger right now is you guys arriving too early and clashing with your past selves, right?"

"Agreed." The girl sighed, hands on her hips. "But I don't have the time nor the ability to experiment and figure out the exact correlation between eco produced and time traveled. It would take a few trips back and forth, and I don't think Onin wants to do what she did for me again; it looked exhausting."

"So if you're totally freaking out about getting back too early, why are you trying to run out ASAP? It's going to be tough for you to get away on a school night."

"I'm kinda... hiding him in my closet." Loor gestured to Jak. "Once mom and dad are back home, I'm not sure how I'm going to manage that... An extra day is an extra chance to get caught, and then there will be no running away. I'll have to explain everything, which is more than likely to land me in an asylum..."

"You're taking too much of it on yourself." Jak pointed out. "I'm fine with hiding an extra day. Better safe than sorry; if we come back early and twin like Samos did with his past-self, just me seeing me would probably delay me that extra second when you tried to kill yourself last night into being too late."

"I'm... not sure what he just said." Damian admitted.

"Time-continuum stuff." Loor sighed. What Jak had just mentioned made too much sense to her. It was true, his arrival had been at _exactly_ the right moment. She'd been seconds from inhaling enough mud and water to be beyond help, or at least into the hairy territory of brain damage. "Alright, alright, Friday it is... I just hope leaving from here won't effect our placement too badly."

"Here?" Damian asked. "What's wrong with your house?"

"If distance is relative, and that's a big frigging if, Fury and I landed in the fucking fortress, leaving from her house. Your house would be, and again this is _if_ where we leave from matters, somewhere around the stadium. A better place to land, even if the war is over. It _is_ further away from where I've projected the converter to be, but we'll have to hope the distance doesn't effect things too badly."

"You think too much." Jak chided.

"Can't help myself. And speaking of thoughts, I think we should be going." She said this while looking out Damian's window. The light had turned orange outside; they needed to get back on the bikes and hightail it home before it was too dark.

"Right." Both of the boys stood up to join Loor where she was standing. She quickly leaned over to hug Damian, turning to lead the way out. Jak fell in line after a slight nod of recognition to the other male in the room. Though a hug was Loor's usual farewell, Damian still walked them to the door.

"Hey, Loor. Should I borrow you..." He trailed off as they walked to the front room, the three of them gathered at the front door as they got their shoes on; Jak had borrowed a set of work boots that actually belonged to Loor's mother. "Y'know?"

He was questioning about the third game. She considered it for a while, but then shook her head no. "It's better if I don't psyche myself out. Once I get back, I'll follow Jak's instincts and make sure I don't try to take the lead. As long as I stay in line, it'll all be okay."

"Loor, you kinda fail at that." Damian pointed out. "You can't do anything without pushing yourself into at least second-in-command."

"I don't want it." She asserted, standing straight after lacing up her own boots. "I survived once. What in hell could be worse than metal Kor?"

"Well... as long as you don't die, you'll see." Damian forced a smile, but it was clear he was worried. He wasn't confident in Loor's ability to survive what was coming next. "Friday?"

"Friday." She confirmed. "See if you can get your mom to pick us all up from school or something."

* * *

"It's not a story book, is it?"

Jak hadn't spoken as they'd ridden back to her house, a look of consideration on his face the whole time. Still, it wasn't until she'd busied herself, cooking again, that he'd asked the question. She'd been wondering what was on his mind, but she was quite reluctant to answer that particular question.

She was worried he'd be somehow insulted by the presentation of his story. Playing it as a game took away the serious flavor of war, and the cartoony style put more focus on humor than the horror of what Haven had experienced. It was like the whole thing was in Daxter-vision. Before she had worshiped it, but now the inaccuracies, and learning the truth for herself, she felt ashamed of her fangirl obsession.

Still, she wouldn't lie to him.

"No." She answered, speaking over the sizzle of food in a pan. She was frying some chopped mushrooms with soy after browning some hamburger, rice cooking in a pot on a smaller burner. "It's not."

"What is it?" He asked, leaning against the counter on the other side of the kitchen; out of her way.

"A game." She huffed, reaching up to the spice cabinet and searching for the cumin. "Like the one you were playing this morning... do you want to see it?"

"Not really. I know what happened." He chuckled now, not sounding so serious. "How come you haven't played the next one? Sounds like you know the rest of the story pretty damn well, what kept you from moving on?"

"Busy." She answered shortly. "When I'd finished up with the second game, which is what we just went through, by the way, I'd just started the VC project. I'd gotten so adsorbed into it... either working on it or hiding it from my parents. It's by far the most ambitious thing I've ever done." She laughed, though it was similar to a lot of laughs he'd been hearing from her lately. It was a sour and regretful sound, snorting at something in the past with an extra push of air behind it that made it sound like a laugh. "When I got a project going, I only play games I've already beaten so they take less brain power. That way I can unwind and get some sleep. When the project was finally successful..." She looked at him, smirking slightly. "Well, that's when I ran into you."

Again, that laugh as she turned back to stirring the contents of the frying pan while finally sighting the spice she wanted and shaking a few puffs of it over the mix.

"The whole idea for liquid energy started when I was playing that game. My theory had been long time coming, just exploring the behavior of electrons... I'd concluded that electricity was a plasma on my own. But the idea that it could be slowed down and turned to a liquid? Eco gave me that idea... I never freakin' figured that my inspiration would also be the final product of the project."

He didn't answer verbally, just crossing the kitchen to hug her around the middle.

He hated that laugh. It sounded like she'd rather be crying.

"What are we going to do...?" She wondered.

"Hm?" He had his chin resting on her shoulder. "What do you mean? We're going back to Haven."

"No, no, I mean in this in-between time." She sighed, shaking her head a little.

"Oh." He gave her an extra squeeze. "Who said we had to do anything? Haven't you ever just laid back and done nothing?"

"Not unless I'm brooding." She snorted. "I'm damn sure there's something productive to be done."

"And I'm sure your brain is going to explode if you don't take it easy." He started nosing her hair away from her neck, though once he had the skin clear he didn't do anything with it... which distracted her more than if he had kissed her. Sudden awareness that they were home alone came to the front of her brain for a full two seconds. "You've never just lazed an hour or two away?"

"Uh... no." She felt blush creeping across her cheeks. "Though I guess you got to take it easy before Gol and Maia came along, huh?" As she asked she wanted to shudder; it felt like goosebumps were trying to rise on the sweet spot on the top of her spine, simply begging for attention... which he was _not_ giving, despite the fact that she could feel his breath on her neck.

No, he was just standing there, a smug tone in his voice. "I wouldn't call it easy, but I did get to relax pretty often. Food, and then we'll see if I can talk you into sitting still for ten seconds."

She felt like snarling after him, or at least turning around and biting him as he let go of her and returned to his previous position on the other side of the kitchen. Was he _trying_ to drive her totally insane? And, assuming he was, why was he so freaking good at it?

_**Because your imagination does all the work, of course.**_

Loor blinked once, returning her awareness to her cooking as Lyra decided now was a good time to comment. The fact that she was talking was a very good sign that all was well; eco had revitalized the animal in her head. _And your claiming innocence in that department?_

_**Actually, yes. For once, I've had absolutely nothing to do with your bodily reactions to him. It's a waste of power to influence you when you torture yourself quite nicely. Even the part of your mind that is indeed yours doesn't agree with you when it comes to resisting your instincts.**_

_Beautiful. Well do me a favor and please don't stick your claws into this... _

_**No need to ask, as I've said it's entertaining enough to watch you fight with yourself on the issue. At another time I may be a tad more... active on the issue. But, for the moment, you're on your own. Do enjoy the feeling while you can. **_

_Oh._ Loor's own mental tone had taken on a huge amount of sarcasm. _I'm just reveling in it. _

* * *

**The Author's Corner**

NEW CHAPTER! WOOOO!

I'm sorry I've left everyone hanging for so long, but my social issues have finally been straightened out and I can get back to writing. Got a sweet scene planned, and then the fun shall unfold from there.

Thank you all for your support and reviews; you are what make writing this story as rewarding as it is fun.

Next time,

-Loor


	18. Learning to Relax

**I don't own Jak.**

**Vacation Or War- Return  
****Chapter Eighteen- Learning to Relax**

Loor was pacing once she and Jak returned to her room. There was hardly the space for it, but she managed it anyway. She couldn't hold still, too much bouncing around her brain but no words to express it present. She wanted to go outside of the room and play video games, or watch a movie, or do _something_ to distract herself from the noisy silence in her brain. She knew that there was something she should have been doing; some situation or another she should have been puzzling out, but her mind couldn't grasp it.

"What's up with you?" Jak asked, sitting on her bed and watching her stalk the only aisle of empty space in the room.

"Restless." She snorted, shaking her head and pushing her hair back. "I know I gotta do something, but I can't figure out what."

"Ever figure that you don't have to do anything, and your brain just isn't used to that?"

She served him a glare for a single pass, which meant it didn't last more than a second.

"Okay, fine. Talk to me."

"That's just the issue... I can't put words to what's bothering me. I wanna say the whole thing with Alex is an issue, but you kinda defused that... changing the date to Friday is actually safer, despite the extra day I gotta hide you. I got back to school on Tuesday, but as long as you keep quiet while I'm gone it's no big deal. Damian has the device I wanna use and is making a plug for it, and once he has that ready I'm going to tell him to destroy the rest of the stock... God_damn_ why do I feel like there's a loose end here?"

"Sounds like you got all your bases covered." He shrugged, waiting for her to stalk closer to him and then grabbing her arm firmly, pulling her out of her obsessive pacing and onto his lap. "At least, on the important stuff."

"So I'm worrying about something un-important?" She quested, once again sounding exhausted. Her nervous action had been riling her up, but getting pulled free of it left her suddenly tired.

"I donno." He shrugged, laying back and pulling her along as he rolled over, releasing her on the still sizable pile of pillows she kept, despite the bedding she'd parted with to make his bed in the closet. "What are you worrying about?"

She gave him a look, pouting while serving him a poke in the stomach. "How many times do I gotta say it? I _don't know." _

"First time ever in the history of the universe." He pointed out with a chuckle. "Maybe that's your problem."

"I'm worrying because I don't know what it is I'm worrying about? That doesn't make any logical sense... something has to cause the worry, and if I'm not aware of that something I wouldn't have started to worry in the first place."

"But say you are aware, but you just don't know that you're worried about it?" He was snickering as she talked her way into circles.

"You're going the right way to get bitten." She grumbled, though she laced her arms over and under his neck as he came to hold her around the middle. "And not in a good way..."

"Just trying to bounce ideas." He defended, a smile still in his voice.

She nodded a little bit, shifting around and leaning her forehead against his. "Thanks." Eventually tumbled from her lips, though it was a clumsy word as was still attempting to think.

They lay in silence for some time as she chewed her lip, her chin resting on her collar bone as she frisked her mind for answers. He watched her, not quite sure of what to do about it. He had some ideas to distract her, but he imagined she wouldn't approve of the current time and place. It seemed whatever answer she was searching for, she simply couldn't find it alone. As much as his help had been irritating her, it had been better than watching her like this. She looked like the unanswered question might've caused her pain.

Moments ticked past before he said anything.

"We _should_ do something."

"Hm?" She lifted her head. "What?"

"Something. Anything." He took on a small smile. "This is your vacation too, Loor. Treat it like one."

"But I... we're about to go adventuring again. I wanna make sure I'm totally ready... not like last time. I was scrambling to keep up... you were saving my ass almost all of the time, and I felt totally pathetic. All the other stress on top of that..."

"Lauren." His voice turned stern, hands sliding up to take hold on either side of her face, forcing her to look at him. "_Relax."_

She noted a veiled threat in his tone. Finally she looked up at him, taking stock of his body language and getting the idea that she was either going to calm down or he was going to do something very mean just to distract her; one of her hints to this was a very devious smirk he wore despite a furrowed brow.

Taking a deep breath in and letting it out slowly was her own surrender, though it was followed by a growl. "Don't even think about it, buddy-boy."

"Too late."

"Well un-think it." She huffed while moving to sit up and away from him. She was pulling herself towards her computer at the end of the bed, but he used his already secure hold around her middle to yank her back, sitting up and flopping over to the other end of the bed, over by the wall, and taking her with him. "Hey!" She groused.

He raised an eyebrow at her, that smirk still in place.

"What?" She still relented to stay in a sitting-up position, though he was a heavy anchor around her middle. "Just because I spent all night on my computer last night doesn't mean there's nothing to do on it tonight. Figured I could play Solitaire or something..."

He looked at the hulk that crouched over her desk; a monster worshiped by a multitude of half-empty pop cans and chocolate wrappers. "That thing has games?"

"A few." She sounded a tad sheepish, that her work machine could also be used for play. "Solitaire, Hearts, a really addictive Pin-Ball game... Used to be good at it but Solitaire's been a new favorite of late because it's still the same game with all the noises turned off. For some reason, Pin-Ball loses some luster when you mute the sound-effects and the cheap music."

He released her to get up onto all fours, approaching the machine that hadn't been shut off since the night before. The screen was black but he could hear the fan of both the tower and the huge monitor, though most of it's bulk wasn't in the screen but in the box-y mass extending behind the screen. It looked nothing like the stuff that Vin had at the power station; all the screens had been flat and glowed with blue eco energy.

"Move the mouse." She instructed. "The screen's just sleeping."

He glanced back at her before looking at the desk. There was a flat board covered in buttons and a hand-sized object with a flat bottom and two big buttons, along with a little wheel that stuck up between them. Either one could have been what she was talking about, but the smaller object was the one that had a few inches of space on the desk, where the flat one was completely surrounded by cans.

He gave the smaller object a little push, his head jerking up as the monitor let off a hum followed by an electric fizzle. It had flashed at him, but remained black. "Uh..."

"Give it a second." She snickered, giving him a little push out of the way so she could sit in front of the machine. "The CPU itself is practically homemade to my specifications, but the monitor is an old beast we've had in the basement for a while. I want a new one, but as long as this one works... why bother?" She took hold of the mouse as he watched the black screen slowly light up and brighten into a full-color display. She didn't explain what she was doing, moving the mouse and a corresponding cursor flying across the screen to the bottom left corner. A bar popped up, where she clicked on a button that had symbols he couldn't read on it.

He didn't ask though. He just watched as she clicked through a few menus, selecting something that made the screen suddenly turn black again.

He gave her a look. What did she do? She didn't look upset, so it was unlikely that she broke it.

The screen lit up again, now displaying some type of game-board.

"Ta-da." She snickered. "I bring you pointless gaming at it's finest... besides maybe Tetris. A Pin-Ball simulator that even lets you tilt the virtual machine, though don't bump it more than once or it'll be game-over."

She then scooted over to let him at the keyboard. She explained the basic rules of the game and the buttons he needed for the flippers at the bottom of the screen, along with the all-important ball-release... and the tilt buttons.

She then got up to leave the room.

"Where are you going?" He questioned as she got up and off the bed.

"Snacks." She snickered. "It's our vacation? Fine. I'm getting some food... and maybe a DVD. My computer _can_ play them, I just need to find a set of external speakers so I can turn the sound on. I think my brother had a set I can... 'borrow.'"

He nodded like he knew what she was talking about, turning his attention back to the game she'd put at his hands.

She left the room, closing the door and hefting a long sigh. Being in there with him was torture; once outside she was able to address _exactly _what was bothering her.

Interacting with him like this was so strange to her. Haven had been her crash-course in being social, 101. She was used to always having something that needed to be done with all of the pending emotional issues effectively pushed out of the way until a time of relative calm.

Now there was no underlying disaster. Not for a few days at least. It was just her, him, what few items of entertainment she had in her room, and a great many hours until they had to care about anything besides keeping him hidden from her family.

And with it she'd been given more than sufficient time to take stock and look at how she felt about him.

_**You're getting dramatic again.**_ Lyra complained as she finally walked away from her room, first going upstairs to search her brother's room for speakers she could plug into her computer. It was ironic that when she built the machine they'd taken the extra time to include a sound card, which wasn't really necessary for what she'd planned to do with the PC, and then she'd never gotten speakers for the thing. **_I told you about this weeks ago, and you're just now figuring it out for yourself? _**

_As if I can trust anything you tell me._ Loor couldn't help a snort as she emerged on the main floor and pulled a quick turn to go the rest of the way upstairs. _I would expect you to say just about anything to try and have me get into his pants. _

_**I think I mentioned you're doing well enough on that venture under your own powers... though admitted, I would have taken him a long time ago if I were able to control you. **_The animal's chuckle was laced with irritation as she was reminded how stingy her host was... or perhaps Loor was just stubborn.

_Thank God for small favors._ The girl came to the top of the stairs, turning down the hall and letting herself into her brother's room. Among the mess was a great deal of electronic parts. He just collected the bits and pieces, even though he didn't need them. He was an audio nerd though, so he was sure to have a small set of speakers that would hook into a jack. As she expected, there as a small set of cone-shaped speakers that looked to be in good repair. The batteries were missing, but there was a power adapter attached that she could plug in. _So what should I do about it? _

_**You're asking me? **_The animal's chuckle turned to a full laugh. **_And what do you expect me to advise you to do? You know exactly how I would show him._**

_But you also know the stress it would cause me. _Loor gathered the parts she needed in the crook of one arm, leaving her brother's room and going out to the living room, browsing the DVD collection for something good.

_**And since when have I ever cared about that? **_

_My stress feeds into you. Don't think I don't feel it, Lyra. We've become more intimately connected since we played your little game. You've gotten smarter... and I've lost some of my cold and logical thought processes. It took a while to realize, but I **do** feel it. You've tainted me; I've become a more emotional being. And you, despite your base instincts, do care about my well-being. _She selected a few of her favorites, turning and heading to the kitchen for the snacks she said she'd be grabbing.

_**You have to survive for me to continue existence. Your well-being is also my own. **_

_Indeed. _Loor didn't argue this point, letting the animal keep her pride. She sounded sulky. _And that includes my mental health. You haven't full-on attacked me since that game either._

There was a long silence in which Loor arrived in the kitchen and got two bags of microwave popcorn going. She usually wasn't a fan of the artificial taste, but her father was the only one who knew how to make popcorn the old fashioned way on the stove top.

_**This head is my home. No sense in destroying the place you live in.**_

Loor smirked, since Lyra making sense was something that was _very_ new. Not that she'd rub it in or anything.

_So what do you think I should do? _

Again, the animal hesitated. Perhaps it disturbed her that she actually had a few thought processes to play around with now.

The microwave beeped obnoxiously as the first bag of popcorn finished, giving Loor the signal to pull it out and put the other bag in.

_**Let things come naturally. He'll notice if you're pushing yourself... or holding yourself back. And do me a favor and stop worrying; it's like something buzzing in my ears. **_

Loor allowed herself a smile, nodding a little. Somewhere, she already knew that. But that was part of the point she'd been making, wasn't it? She and Lyra had once been the same person; two pieces of her slowly ripping psyche that were forced apart when the Baron pumped her full of dark eco.

And after being completely separated, due to a little intervention from the precursor entity they ran into after killing Kor, the two of them were coming to share a few traits. Their war over control would be never-ending, Loor was quite sure of that. Lyra was a creature that would always crave freedom and control, but at least they could occasionally act as a team now.

_**Oh don't get so damn smug. **_The animal hissed over Loor's hope for a somewhat peaceful mindscape. **_Just because I don't have to mess around with your brain to get you to lust after your man doesn't mean I won't. I could certainly make things worse. _**

_You could._ Loor agreed, still smirking. _But you'd waste your energy. _

Lyra didn't answer with anything but an irritated growl; Loor got the distinct feeling of the animal rolling over and ignoring her.

That was all well and good; the second bag of popcorn was done.

"Movie night..." Loor did her best to sound positive to herself as she managed to gather everything up in her arms and descend the stairs to the basement. "That's something, right? Better than old-school Pin-Ball..."

As she got to her door she took a deep breath and noticed the greasy butter smell coming from the popcorn. Despite not being nearly as good as popcorn made on the stove top, it did smell just like a movie theater.

"Dating at home." She muttered, lifting up one foot and twisting her room's doorknob open with her toes.

* * *

**The Author's Corner**

Well this was... about as close to cute and romantic as I get. Hope you guys enjoyed.

Going to work now.

-Loor


	19. Snooping

**I don't own Jak and Daxter or any other copy written items mentioned in this fanfiction. I am not making any money off of it. Meow.**

**Vacation or War- Return  
****Chapter Nineteen- Snooping**

"_Hungry? Eat... this!" _

Loor had a huge smile on her face that only grew as an explosion sounded from the speakers she'd hooked up to her computer, letting off a short giggle. Usually, when showing a movie to a friend, she always looked over to them to see if they were liking it... but in the case of these movies, she didn't actually care.

"_Jeez Burt!" _Valentine exclaimed. _"What the hell d'ya put in those things?" _

"_Just a few household chemicals in the proper proportion." _

"I like that guy." Jak snickered. The two of them had arranged her multitude of pillows into a mound they could lean back on while watching movies on her computer. He was reclined back, arms behind his head while Loor sprawled out across his lap, one lax hand near the popcorn bag they hadn't consumed yet.

The movie they were watching was Tremors, an old monster movie that was more funny than it was scary, but not in a silly way like Scary Movie. The monsters were giant underground worms that hunted by sensing sound and vibrations in the ground, the setting was the middle of nowhere in Nevada, and the heroes consisted of two handymen, one seismologist, and one survivalist so ready for World War Three he was on the verge of starting it himself.

That last one would be Burt; also known as the Gun Guy.

"You should." She snickered. "Though I figured you woulda gotten to like him at the rec-room part."

"I did." He assured. "I just decided that homemade explosives made him more awesome than before. Shoulda sent him against Kor; he wouldn't have even blinked."

"He's just an actor." She pointed out. "This shit didn't actually happen... or I'd be seriously fearing for my life, seeing as my room is partially underground."

"Just need a big stone box around your house."

"Don't get ahead of yourself; that's something in the third movie."

He blinked, looking away from the screen as the giant tractor that was the heroes' current transportation was suddenly stopped by a pit-fall the monsters had dug. "Burt's house?"

"Totally graboid proof." She agreed, snickering and nodding while looking back to the screen. The tractor had been dragging a semi-tailor with the other survivors aboard. With the tractor dead they were in need of a new safe place or the monsters were going to drag the whole damn thing underground. There were fallen rocks near, which would be safe to stand on, but they were awful far away.

"_Well what if we throw one of those bombs that way, the way that we wanna go, and if it drives them away; we run like goddamn bastards." _

Several eyes turned upon the person who had spoken who was indeed a woman in a movie where harsh language around a woman was a big fucking deal.

"_Pardon my French." _She added sheepishly to several raised eyebrows.

"_What if they don't get scared? What if they don't run?" _Questioned a teenaged survivor.

"_I don't think it does scare them, it hurts them! They're so sensitive to sound, they've gotta run!" _

"_Oh hell!" _Burt was standing up to get more of his homemade explosives. _"She's got my vote!" _

"Lauren?"

The relaxing couple jumped as a voice came from outside Loor's door, questing her name. It was Ann; she must have just gotten home, but neither of them had heard the big door closing over the movie. Panic snapped through instantly; Loor sat up and Jak had gone tense, ready to follow any direction Loor would give once she figured out what to do.

The closet was too far away, and made a very distinctive noise when opened and closed. Ann would be sure to check if Loor was acting nervous.

"Just a sec!" Lauren called back to her sister as she motioned Jak in front of her, sitting up and quickly tossing several pillows in top of him, followed by two different blankets thrown into the mix. "Lemme put a shirt on!"

"What are you still doing awake?" Ann asked through the door. "You got school on Tuesday... you should be getting your sleeping pattern back in order so you're ready."

"Couldn't sleep." She answered while checking the pile from all angles; Jak was effectively hidden. All she had to worry about was him overheating while she tried to deflect her sister. She then reached over the new mound to tap the space bar on her computer and pause the movie, getting up and stripping of her jeans on her way to the door. Her T-shirt would be the shirt she supposedly just threw on, but wearing pants past eight PM was something her sister would notice and be suspicious of.

Tossing the pants aside and opening the door, she found her sister still in her work outfit and looking rather un-impressed.

"So you decided to watch a movie?" Ann had the face of a disapproving parent, even though she was looking at her younger sister.

"You did the same for weeks after you watched 'The Ring.' I... just have a lot on my mind. Figured I'd watch an old favorite and try to relax."

Ann's face turned slightly insulted at the mention of her issues with horror movies, but it softened as she remembered the fact that her sister had already been through a lot this particular weekend. She'd lost her best friend to a sickness that no-one could define, and been unable to anything about it.

"Well... I guess that makes sense." She relented, nodding a little. "But finish this one up and get some sleep, kiddy. Mom and Dad will be mad at me if you're all messed up by the time school's back in session."

"Personally, I think they might kinda understand."

Ann nodded a little, but looked as if she wanted to say something more. Gone was the possible lecture; she was worried about something bigger than a few lost hours of sleep.

"I'm worried that I might not understand." Ann admitted. "Lauren... I hate to bring it up... but a few months ago you were far from right in the head. You tried to throw yourself off of a tree. Now all of the sudden you're changing... mom and dad may not have said anything but you've grown a lot in the past few weeks. You're almost as tall as I am, and you seem... different. Then Chelsea..." Her voice drained away.

Lauren nodded just a little, though she felt heat on her spine as her sister named all the physical changes. She realized she was neither wearing her contacts or hat at the moment, and thus was even more exposed than usual. She just looked down and tried not to draw attention to the extra changes.

"You seem to have gotten over it way too quickly."

"Huh?" Her head picked up again, looking at her sister despite the danger. "What?"

"I expected you to do something crazy. Try and kill yourself again, something like that. Instead you spent a day crying in my arms, and since then you've seemed... practically over it."

"I've just been distracting myself." She jumped in before Ann could puzzle any further. "I... I don't wanna think about it, so... I just block it off. Movies, video games, the like."

"You sure?" Ann asked, staring at her younger sister. "You're sure nothing else is going on?"

Lauren knew that tone.

"What do Mom and Dad think? Were they talking before they left?"

"Mom's... worried you're pregnant or something."

Lauren blinked a few times, and then let herself laugh. She couldn't help it; she had a personality adjustment and her parents thought their thirteen year old daughter got knocked up. Forgetting the fact that she'd run the risk a few times with the close calls between her and Jak, and it was a somewhat logical conclusion with how much she'd been eating of late, she still had to laugh, holding her sides. It was a few moments later that her sister started laughing too; this reaction was proof that her little sister hadn't gotten into anything sticky.

The two girls leaned on each other, catching their respective breath and snickering.

"I never thought that I was making you guys worry that much." Lauren giggled, shaking her head. "On my honor, I'm still a virgin."

"Good." Ann ruffled her sister's hair again. "I don't wanna hear about you having sex until you're at _least_ eighteen."

"Why?" Loor couldn't help smirking. "Worried I might beat you to it?"

Ann shrugged. "Nothing wrong with taking your time, is all."

"Nothing wrong with having fun, either."

Ann rolled her eyes. "I forgot, I'm speaking to the resident pervert of the family. Telling you to abstain until a certain age is an insult."

"Practically." Lauren turned on her heel to go back to her room. "I'm gonna finish my movie and go to bed, okay?"

"Okay." Ann moved for her own room, next door, but stopped short. "Wait a second!"

Loor felt like she'd been zapped by lighting down the spine. Fear and apprehension made her do her best to act naturally, turning her head a little. "Hm?"

"Did you get water to the animals like I told you to? And get eggs?"

Ann rolled her eyes as her younger sister swore and dove into her room to pull pants on before going outside to do her duties with the various outdoor animals. She'd figured the girl would forget, but then again, she had a lot on her mind. She could be forgiven for a simple slip of the mind, this time.

She herself turned once more to enter her room, ready to take a load off. She was going to get out of her work outfit, maybe read a little, and pass out. It was good she was able to talk to her sister though; she'd been so worried about leaving her alone of late.

So scared she'd go and do something stupid.

Sighing as she turned, she glanced into Lauren's room.

The walls were blank. Empty. That was odd. They were usually covered with art for the Jak and Daxter games. They were both huge fans, though Lauren was far more obsessed. Ann played a game and moved on, whereas Loor didn't play many games, but she killed the ones she did play. Every little bit that could be done, _would _be done. Collectables, secret scenes, _everything. _Without a game guide; she considered looking up stuff cheating. Ann thought she was a tad nutty for it, but the house was full of nuts.

But seeing those barren walls made Ann wonder if more was going on with her little sister than Lauren let on. She was so _proud_ of her art wall. To see it empty, as if she'd suddenly become so ashamed of it all that even she didn't wanna look at it...

The world of fiction was Lauren's refuge. Had Chelsea's death shocked her out of it? What little peace of mine Ann had just gained was made useless by what she saw. Hiding out in games wasn't exactly healthy, but it at least kept her sister on the right side of the fence.

"Where did you go...?" Ann questioned softly, daring to enter the room and glance to the left and right. The light was off but the computer provided a decent enough source. On the dresser, to the immediate right of the door, was a box that Lauren kept old pictures in. Oddly enough it was an old box for beer bottles with the divider removed, but Lauren never seemed to notice that. All she knew was the box was for things Lauren wanted to forget... but couldn't be forced to throw away.

On top was Lauren's copy of Jak II, all of her fanart under it.

She felt her brow knitting as she drew the game out, popping the case open and finding the disk present. She blinked at it a few times, Jak's split face between himself and Dark Jak staring back at her.

Ann suddenly realized she was totally snooping into her sister's room, an action that was hardly condoned nor tolerated between the sisters. She'd _kill_ Lauren for poking about her room, and nothing gave her the right to do the same. So she closed the case, did an about-face, and finally went to her own room while depositing the game back in the box.

* * *

When Lauren came back inside it was at a jog, still cursing at herself for forgetting to get water and feed to the animals. It's not like the chickens directly complained, but she still felt like a dumbass for it. Collecting eggs when they'd all roosted was also difficult because some hens would sleep in the nest boxes, and they liked to peck at anything reaching under them.

But she'd gotten everything done in an expeditious manner, putting the eggs on the counter in the kitchen next to the sink before rounding and heading back downstairs.

Her sister's light was on but the door was closed; her own room had been left open. She once again started cursing, feeling stupid. She should have shut it! Jak was probably overheating under that pile of pillows. She dove through the open portal, shutting it behind her and leaping onto the bed, pulling the pile apart to find Jak exactly where she left him... looking a tad uncomfortable.

"She almost came in here." He whispered, aware that Ann's room was right next door. "I was sure as hell that she knew for a second."

"I'm sorry." She hissed back, motioning that he was free to move. "I didn't mean for that–"

"It's okay." He snickered, giving her a nudge. "No disaster, no one found me."

"But-"

"If you keep arguing with me you're eventually going to raise your voice, and then she _will_ come in here." He reminded.

Her mouth hung open for a moment, but she closed it with a click of her teeth and gave him a shove into the pillow pile, leaning to her computer to hit the space bar again and finish the movie. She didn't re-arrange the pillows, just laying down on her stomach and using the berm of bedding as a rest under her chest, pulling over the popcorn bag and munching.

"So..." Jak still spoke quietly as the movie resumed. "You're the resident pervert of the house?"

She felt her cheeks turning red, growling softly. "Was there ever a doubt in your mind?" She asked, keeping the testy tone out and instead trying to sound like she was proud of it.

"Not really..." He flopped down next to her, body turned side-ways to face her as he pushed a few stray hairs back and away from her cheek, stealing a kiss. "But it does make me wonder what you're holding back... I certainly haven't seen enough from you to give you that title."

"Yeah, but you compare me to Dax." She watched him out of the corner of her eye, distracted as the heroes of the movie had tied a bomb to some string and tossed out out for one of the monsters to eat as the fuse burned, blowing it to kingdom come. "I don't think I _could _earn that title in your brain."

"You could try." He encouraged, having nosed is way back to her ear and threatening a nibble. Such temptation had her attention, as well as most of her mental power as she held back her wish to react. Still, she was able to keep her mind above her body, eyes laser-locked on the screen even though she wasn't really processing the images. "Or..." He let the word linger, as if he had to think... or he wanted to further tease her by the gentle rush of warm air going by her neck. "You could tell me how you got it here."

"I don't think you'd like that story." She said with a small shake of her head. Greater awareness of the world around her was lost as she felt Lyra's attention shifting like a hot spotlight. A great deal was on the moment at hand, but a small amount went searching for the events Loor had only briefly and shamefully referenced in her head. "I certainly don't."

"Why not?" False innocence and hardly masked devious intentions came together in a strange mix that made her look at him directly, finally pulling her pupils away from her screen. Not that the movie mattered to her; she knew how it ended. The way he spoke made her wonder if he still had some eco left in his system after allowing her to leech off of him; it was a dangerous tone that, if Dark ever spoke when in the living world, she imagined would sound like him.

"My curiosity, a bad boy who used to be a friend of mine, and some very un-observent teachers all came together in a very bad mixture." She sighed, tension showing in her voice. "What's gotten into you all of the sudden?"

"Something wrong with it?" The fact that she'd been put off-balance by his behavior seemed to make him all the more smug. "So what did this 'friend' do?"

Loor's shame caused an actual sensation of pain in her head as she thought directly about it. Rage followed, but regret stuck more than anything else. Stupid things she'd done under the illusion of her own maturity, trying to learn about the emotional matters that she didn't understand and only ending up confusing herself even more.

She grew quiet, choosing not to answer and looking back at the movie. She didn't even pay attention to what was going on, she was just looking for some other place to put her eyes.

He waited a moment for her to change her mind before pushing her jaw up with his nose, lips adhering to her neck. Part of her wanted to shove him off, but that part shriveled and diminished as he tested his teeth against her skin.

"What are you doing...?" She whined softly, turning to break contact with her neck but only getting more harsh treatment from his teeth on her collar bone. Despite herself, she found her hands stroking his hair as her body arched towards him.

He answered into the crook of her neck, his statement quite simple. "You were upset."

"And what if you made me more upset?"

He looked up at her, smirking and pulling her over the extra inch needed for them to be pressed up against one another. "Are you?"

She blinked, almost pouting before giggling softly. "Meanie-face."

He bumped noses with her, wearing a full-on devious smile. "Watch your movie."

* * *

**The Author's Corner**

Ah... something else my man does to me regularly has made its way into fiction.

And before someone thinks something super angsty is going to happen because of Loor's odd past with physical sexuality, you can put your worries to rest. It's just a slight explanation of why she is the way she, despite her biological age. Steven's already played his part in this story, and I doubt we're even gonna see that jerk-face again before the big finale.

Oh yeah, I'm sorry chapters have been slow. Sleep is difficult enough without piling on writing time, and between work and my sister's wedding coming up in June... yeah. Life is a tad hectic at the Randolph house. . (Not my real last name, making a joke.)

BTW, I fucking LOVE Tremors. I once upon a time thought of a Jak-Tremors crossover fic... wondering how Haven City would deal with graboids. Or shriekers. Or assblasters. Might make a fun fic... and possibly give me a chance to kill Jinx! I've always wanted to kill him in a story... but never had a reason to. . Oh well.

If you don't know Tremors, you should find it and watch it. They are OOOOOOLD movies though so they might be tough to find. I don't care if they're old though; they are quite excellent.

-Loor


	20. Gotta, Wanna

**I don't own Jak. Sorries.**

**Vacation or War- Return  
****Chapter Twenty- Gotta, Wanna**

_Heat. An electrical snap in the air that made it tough to sit still. Music pounding at her ears, making her body desperate to move with the pulse. _

_A crowded dance floor. Flashing lights and the smell of people. Jumping with the beat, shaking her head and letting her hair fall over bear shoulders, a scandalously short skirt giving her freedom; shame and fear nonexistent._

_Who cared if they saw? Would they be tempted? She hoped so. _

_Louder. The music kept getting louder. Who was she dancing with? Hands on her hips, sliding on her stomach, following the pulse, bumping lips against her ear and making her heart direct the music with urgency._

_So many people, but who was this? Man or woman? Big hands, it had to be a man. _

_The smell changed. She'd zeroed in on him. _

_A daring hand on her skirt; he didn't have to reach far for it. _

_It was too hot. Too loud. She had to get away from the dance. The lights made her dizzy. _

_His other hand had slid up as the first sat firmly over the thigh, picking at the hem of the skirt. His touch made her more vulnerable to the heat. She was swooning, leaning on him, as the music continued to play her like a puppet on strings. _

_The other people might as well have vanished, present but forgotten. Fingers on both hands brushed near the forbidden, temptation making her whimper. _

_The sparks in the air, crackling like short bursts of lighting as she softly murmured her want, tilting her head back and questing for a kiss. Surely he'd be willing? _

_Another nibble to her ear, further along the upper ridge. A coy chuckle that asked her to speak her wishes more clearly; describe her lust with greater fidelity. Fingertips on her thigh traced the very boundary of the taboo. _

_Too much noise to think. Too much heat to speak properly. _

_She was reduced to begging. _

"_Please..." _

* * *

Loor awoke to the realization that she'd fallen asleep with her head next to one of the speakers she'd gotten for her computer. After the movie she'd switched the media center to play all of her music on shuffle and loop; some techy beat that would have been easily ignorable at a distance getting pumped into her ear. Attempting to lift up and away gave her another realization on the morning.

Jak had fallen asleep on the bed with her. How exactly her head had ended up on the desk, she hadn't a clue, but he was holding her around the middle with his chin hooked over her shoulder, effectively keeping her still when she attempted any sort of movement.

His hands, though placed most innocently on her stomach, brought back the dream she'd been having in great detail.

The heat she'd felt in the fantasy, the snap of electrical sparks, were too familiar to be mistaken. _Lyra... what did I tell you about messing around up there? _

**_And since when have I ever cared for your rules? _** The animal was giggling, and Loor could practically see her grinning from ear to fuzzy ear. **_You're practically defenseless when you're sleeping, I'd be a fool not to take advantage. _**

_Do you even know how this feels? _Loor growled slightly as she made another attempt at moving, wrenching free of Jak's body after several efforts and sitting up to look back at him. Moving made the odd effects of the dream all the more obvious; she felt a hot knot in her stomach that beat with her heart, making her want to either curl up to hide or nurse it like a toothache.

_**It only hurts because you're trying to ignore it. **_

She sighed, her eyes only now registering that Jak was still serenely asleep. He'd laid out on his side, likely with her in arms, at some late point in the night. How long it had been was anyone's guess, but it was lucky that she'd woken up before anyone came to check on her. He was in plain view; too easily seen if anyone had just walked into her room.

And her parents were due back that afternoon; Ann was sure to check in and make sure she was awake for Mom and Dad's arrival back home to help them get all their things inside.

With all these pending things, she'd reached out a hand to shake him. He needed to wake up and move to a better hiding place; the sooner he did the less she would have to worry. All she had to do was wake him up and tell him to move; he'd playfully argue a little, but he understood how much trouble she'd get in for having a guy in her room.

Sighing slightly, she instead tucked a strand of blond-green hair behind his ear, watching quietly. It was interesting to see him like this; no disasters, no world about to meet it's doom. Just a few pillows and possibly a dream. He was completely relaxed, a hint of a smile on his face. She wanted to lean down and leave a kiss on his forehead before settling in next to him again, but she only got through the first part of the motion before she was reminded she had to move him.

She wished she was as old as she looked. She wished she were actually an adult, instead of a kid in big-girl clothes. She felt so small next to him, and not just physically. Oh, he was bigger than her in pretty much every muscular dimension, and had a few inches up on her height-wise, but he was also pretty mature. He'd made the decision to come after her. He didn't even need all the facts before he'd decided that. What had she decided? To hide under a rock until it was safe. Back in Haven she'd done nothing but clung to him, too unsure to do anything else.

She was only confident when she had all the information. Was that really confidence?

She blinked, first noting that she was still playing with his hair, and second that all this negativity sounded a lot like moping, and Daxter would have never stood for that. Shaking her head she figured if she was going to give herself a lecture for being indecisive, she might as well _do_ something instead of sitting up in bed playing with Jak's mop.

She moved, and the heavy and hot stone in her stomach throbbed a reminder; her body was literally begging for attention. This distracted her from whatever plan of action she'd been thinking of, but she wouldn't let it stop her. Instead she rolled over to get to the edge of the bed and stand up, looking up at her digital stereo clock.

Five in the morning. She'd slept all of two hours, maybe three. _You suck. _

_**If you'd listen to me, we wouldn't be having these difficulties. **_

_Listen to you?_ It was her turn to laugh, though it was little more than an irritated and unbelieving snort as she moved for her door; she had an idea. _If I listened to you, God only knows how much trouble I'd be in. _

_**Trouble... but that's the fun kind of trouble. Admit it, you were enjoying that little flight of fancy I gave you. **_

Lyra's voice let off into a purr that led Loor's mind into another sensory bath; in a moment she felt something invasive and intimate, and just as quickly it was gone, leaving her surprised and pining. _What_ was the animal doing to her? Toying with her senses... _This isn't fair... _

**_Fair? Hm... I suppose not, but since when do I care? _**A full laugh came now, and Loor noticed she'd stopped in her doorway when her mind had been so rudely taken. Moving quickly she stepped through the door and shut it behind her, taking a quick turn to her right to face another door.

The door to her sister's room. She knocked first, and then opened it when there was no answer.

Ann, of course, was fast asleep at this ungodly hour. She was nearly face-down in her lime green pillows, matching bedspread messy but effectively wrapped around her person. The floor of the room was pretty clean but there was a desk near the door with a chair overflowing with odds and ends. The shelves were occupied with two things; dragon statuettes and books, and there was a great many of both. Picking her way into the room, Loor clambered onto her sister's bed and gave Ann a light shake to the shoulder.

She reacted with a light groan, but woke up quickly. At first dull blue eyes went searching for the clock, but the answer to that unspoken question led her to look up at her younger sister with a frown on her face. "...What?"

"I have a friend who wants to come over, and I wanted to know if it was okay." Lauren did her best to look pleading; this was actually not that uncommon. She had a lot of friends with a lot of family issues, and her house generally played safe haven to those who needed it. Usually it was incredibly late instead of incredibly early, but sudden requests for a friend to stay at the house was not out of the ordinary.

Ann only took a moment to think about it before nodding a little. "Should be alright... tell Mom and Dad when they call... anyone I know?"

"Not really; kinda a new friend."

"Kinda... right... well just keep it down... I need sleep."

"No worries." She nodded with a smile on her face, ready to hop off of her sister's bed and move on to something else with a renewed happy energy.

"Hey." Ann's voice caused a hiccup in that feeling.

"Hm?" She looked back to her big sister, eyebrows raised while staying placid.

"I... saw you put all your Jak stuff in storage. I didn't mean to snoop, but your walls were blank and I just kinda... the box was right there..." Ann actually moved to sit the rest of the way up, stretching her arms up over her head for a moment before grabbing her little sister and pulling her into a gentle hug. "Are you sure you're okay? I mean... it's just kinda strange for you to suddenly abandon something you loved so much."

Lauren nodded slightly, not struggling against her sister's hold. Instead she sat there, even leaning back a bit when she spoke. "It all... just seemed a bit childish to me all of the sudden. I'm sure I'll come back to it soon enough, but with all that's been going on... all that stuff seemed pretty stupid."

"Sometimes it's the stupid stuff that lets us vent all the stress we get from the real stuff." Ann suggested. "You... don't have to grow up all of the sudden. You're still a kid."

Lauren blinked, and then let a laugh out. Not one of her rueful snorts; instead the short bark of a laugh that indicated that she'd been thinking some similar things of late. "I don't feel like a kid anymore... but at the same time I do. Like... when I know what's going on, I feel like an adult, but when I don't I feel like a toddler... and I don't like feeling that way. I want to feel big and sure of myself and worry less about whether or not I'm doing the right thing. I just wanna do stuff and _know_ it's right, even if I don't have all the facts."

"You're always gonna worry." Ann's tone sounded like a warning of disappointment. "As you get older, you never worry less. I thought it would get easier as I got older too, but it didn't... And I had to grow up all at once, taking care of you and Paul."

Loor felt a pang of guilt; Ann was right. She'd been forced to make that maturity jump when they were all kids; for the first ten years of her own life their dad had always been working, so Ann was forced to be Mom's counterpart. It was rare that all three siblings felt on the same level, but Ann had always been the most put-upon.

It wasn't the same as physically skipping three years and spending a month in a war-zone, but Lauren suddenly felt she had no reason to complain about how messy her own mental state was at the moment.

"Be a kid while you got the chance." Ann advised, giving her sister one more squeeze before releasing her. "You don't get to come back after that. Things just keep piling up, and before you know it you've got the whole world on your shoulders."

Loor sat still a moment more, not moving off the bed just yet even though Ann was sending all the signals that she was ready for their conversation to be over. She'd never thought that someone in her family might be able to relate to how she currently felt, even in the most remote way. The very concept that her sister knew at least a little of what she was going through led her to ask a question.

"What if you need to grow up? What if you got a good reason, even if no one else can understand it?"

"You got something worse than two kid-siblings and an only-home-on-the-weekends dad?" There was a challenge in Ann's voice. "I got to help out while you were still in the terrible-twos stage."

Some serious consideration might have gone into Loor's answer, but she decided it better not to engage her sister in a 'who had it worse' fight for fear of letting slip just how much shit she'd gone through. "Not worse. Just important. To _me._"

"Sounds kinda like you're already past the point of no return..."

"Yeah... it's been feeling like that."

"In that case..." Ann sighed, as if that's what she'd been fearing. "Don't fight it. You'll just make it worse for yourself. Understand what you gotta do, and do it. Then, whenever you got a second to breathe, do what you want, and don't waste any time about it. Losing time and looking back, having the regret that you didn't use the time when you had it, it's shitty."

Lauren had to blink and look back at her sister; Ann tried not to swear around her. Something about her being the baby of the family or something, but she always tried to watch her mouth around her.

The two made eye-contact, and Lauren felt it; Ann still saw her as the baby sister, but not necessarily as a child.

"I don't know what happened to you." Ann admitted. "But you've caught up... just whatever you're doing, lose the contacts. As cool as they are, they don't make you look any older. You just look like some crazy anime fan."

Again Lauren blinked, but this was for the fact that she _wasn't_ wearing contacts. Her sister thought her natural color was artificial; and what else should she have thought? It was a psychological blind-spot; people didn't have eyes like what she'd gotten with the dark eco treatments.

Ann snickered, smiling as her sister was momentarily dumbfounded. "I saw the case in the bathroom. You thought I wouldn't notice? I'm sure Mom and Dad have seen 'em by now too. Where'd you get the money for them? Are the comfortable?"

"Comfortable enough." She finally got back with it, cracking a smile. "Early birthday gift from Damian, though I don't know where he got them. Anyway, I should call my friend back and let him know he can come over."

"_He?" _Ann got a sly smile. "And it's not Damian? I didn't know you associated with guys besides him."

"A few." She shrugged, scooting to the end of the bed and standing up. "Sleep well."

"Oh yeah..." Ann nodded, flopping back to her pillows. "Sleep. Almost forgot."

Lauren let out a long sigh when she got out of her sister's room and shut the door, leaning on the wall between the rooms. She hadn't expected Ann to be so full of ready advice, but the fact still stood.

_Do what you gotta, then what you wanna... and don't wait. _

_**So what do you wanna do? **_

_Me? _Lauren turned to her own room, a slight bounce in her step. _You'll see. _

* * *

**The Author's Corner**

It has been two months since I've updated... and there is no excuse. None. I won't make any. Here's the new chapter; let's get on with it, eh?

I love you all for sticking with this story despite my shameless delays.

-Loor


	21. Food For Thought

**I don't own Jak and Daxter. Sorry. **

**Vacation or War- Return  
****Chapter Twenty One- Food For Thought**

"Hey you, up."

Jak growled softly at being nudged when he was sleeping so comfortably, refusing to open his eyes and instead rolling over. He was somewhere between a soft mattress, a fluffy comforter, and a sweet-smelling pillow, and honestly couldn't care what was going on in the world around him; he'd rather go back into dreamland than wake up at anyone's request. He was on vacation, right? Why did he have to get up when his body could easily tell him he hadn't gotten nearly enough sleep?

"Oh, don't be difficult. C'mon!"

A surprisingly strong hand pulled him by the shoulder to stop him from rolling away and yank him back to where he'd been originally, another hand getting between his body and the bed to start levering him upright. Jeez, someone wasn't taking no for an answer this morning. Groggy and still unwilling to completely part with the warmth of the blanket that was clinging to his shoulders he decided the best course of action was to bowl his oppressor over with dead weight.

"Jak!"

Despite his sleepy self, he had to snicker softly. He had pinned down a decidedly female body who was now desperately struggling to get out from under him. She was small, but it was a lean package that eventually shifted his weight off to the side, cursing at his lack of co-operation. For a moment it seemed like she was going to give up now that she'd escaped the crush-zone, but he found that assumption to be quite wrong when she stole the blanket, exposing him to the cool air of the room.

"Hey..." He finally opened an eye to look up at her. He smiled playfully through a challenging leer. "That was un-called for."

"You squished me." Loor batted back, bunching up the blanket in her arms, as if she intended to take it somewhere. "It's mean to squish little people."

"I've never claimed to be a nice guy." He finally sat up of his own power, blinking bleary at the room as he realized something was off. He wasn't quite sure what it was at first, but it hit him soon enough. "Oh... I guess I should move to the closet, huh...?"

"Nope." It was her turn to grin at him. He noticed she had her blue contacts in, and she was wearing a hat that hid the black at the roots of her hair. Loor looked like she was ready to spend a day outside of her room, which to him said he was going to get left alone for a while... but that grin on her face said something entirely different. His face must have asked the question, because she giggled and grabbed him by the arm. "C'mon, let's go upstairs. I'll make breakfast."

"Is it safe...?" He was slow to let himself get drug off the bed, wondering if her mind had finally shattered. Either she was suddenly feeling daring or something in her brain had popped.

"It's fine. If anyone asks, you're a friend of Damian's." She gave him a light push out of her room as she turned back to shut the door, still carrying the blanket she'd stolen from him under one arm. "I asked my sister if I could have a friend over today, and she said dandy. So that's what we are today." She turned around with a relaxed smile. "Just a couple of friends, enjoying the last day of summer together."

He felt his brow raising; Loor wasn't particularly spontaneous. What she did was carefully planned before hand, and she got stressed out from sudden changes. This was odd, but not particularly unwelcome. Without bothering with any more questions, he smiled. "Just friends?"

She missed a beat, turning slightly red. "Well..." She snickered, giving him a quick shove with her shoulder before passing him, sprinting for the stairs going up.

She didn't get particularly far. She may have had long and strong legs, but he still had faster reflexes. He tackled her down to the carpet before she'd even gotten out of the hallway that connected her room with the gaming area. "Going somewhere?"

"Possibly." She snickered, looking back at him and wiggling to try and get free. Sadly he had her around the narrow part of her waist, his arms locked down and keeping her from worming either forward or backward. "Y'know, making food? Plus my sister told us to keep it down."

"She told _you." _His tone was playful but he let her go at the mention of food. Breakfast and a nap sounded really good, and the real joy was he would have to hide this time. "I can claim I didn't know."

"Silly-brain." She huffed, getting up and sticking her tongue out at him. Free once more, she went to the stairs going up and mounted them, glancing back to see if he was following. "Um... I'll be a little while making breakfast. You want me to set you up with God of War or something?"

"Nah, I'll come up with you." He was right behind her, giving her an encouraging nudge when she paused on the steps. It was too early to be ripping minotaurs limb from limb.

With a shrug she continued upstairs, draping the blanket she'd stolen from him over the railing and heading for the kitchen. With nothing else to do, he followed to watch her cook. Apparently she had an idea of what she was doing, because she had a frying pan out from under the stove before he'd even made it into the room, turning on a burner and rushing back to a cabinet to reach up for something on the top shelf.

Which she was too short to reach.

He snickered, grabbing her around the middle and lifting her up an extra few inches. "Good?"

She yelped at first, squirming at first when she'd thought she'd been captured in a continuation of the game they'd been playing downstairs, but then reached out and grabbed a dish of butter from the shelf. "Thanks." She giggled as he let her back down, though he didn't let go of her when she tried to move back to the stove and the warming pan. "Uh... did you need something?"

He snickered, moving without really thinking about it to push her head to the side and kiss her cheek before releasing her. "I'm good." He assured with a smirk that had nothing to do with the word he'd just used to describe himself. Of course she gave him a suspicious look, but had little to no evidence to the contrary. Passing on arguing she returned to the pan and pulled a wooden spoon out of a drawer to slap half of the butter stick into the pan. She watched as it began to melt, thinking a moment before taking another quarter of the stick and dumping it into the pan, nodding in satisfaction at the amount before turning to put the dish back away by way of standing on tip-toe and sliding it back onto the top shelf.

"Enough butter?" He snickered.

"Butter is very important." She returned as she went to the fridge, coming out with a tub of white mushrooms and a jar of minced something. "The mushrooms will adsorb it as they let off water, and then they're super tasty." She had a knife in hand at this point, slicing open the container of mushrooms as her dexterous toes opened a cabinet on floor-level, ducking down to get a strainer for rinsing the fungi she'd decided to cook with.

"And how often do you eat stuff like this?" He was clearly skeptical of why she hadn't been struck down by a heart attack by now if this was her regular diet.

"Most days out of a week. If I gotta cook, I'm going to use most of a stick of butter." She had dumped the mushrooms into the strainer, turning the water on in the sink kiddy-corner to the stove and washing them off by tossing them in the wire mesh basket. "Or I'm going to microwave something if I'm feeling lazy." She then flicked off the water, leaving the strainer in the sink as she went to the other side of the kitchen, reaching into another compartment below the counter, this one next to the fridge, to retrieve a saucepan. "I got mum's metabolism; she and I are exactly the same in a lot of regards. When she was my age she could eat whatever she wanted and never gain an ounce. I'm sure it'll catch up with me in a few years, but while I can get away with it..." She was at the sink again, putting some water in the saucepan. "Might as well! What about you? Are you all picky about what you eat?"

"Never." He said with a shrug. "In Sandover it was whatever we could get off the land. Between the farmer's yakkows and the fisherman's haul we survived. Butter was for cooking, and you only used enough to grease the ware... me and Dax would sometimes wander off and find something growing wild, but other than that we ate whatever we had. Can't be picky when you don't have choices."

It would be at this point that she noticed him looking oddly at her mushrooms.

"They're safe." She assured, suddenly realizing that someone who pretty much lived off the land his entire early life would suspect any mushroom of being dangerous or at least hallucinogenic. She'd gone into another area of storage, this one full of cans and dry goods, to get a package of ramen. Dumping the flavor pack into the water she turned on another burner, setting the saucepan up to boil. "I've always been used to having lots of choices... though I almost always know exactly what I want. I'll go from craving to craving. This month I want fruit, this month I want bread, and so on and so forth. I've actually gone through a whole jar of peanut butter in a week just cause I was jonesing for PB&J sandwiches."

"Peanut butter?" He asked as she took the mushrooms out of the sink and started slicing them thinly on the cutting board next to the stove top.

She felt like face-palming, but didn't because of the knife in her hand. "I'll show you at lunch time... it's something much easier to show than explain." She waved her hand over the frying pan, where the butter had melted completely. It was plenty hot for the frying process to begin once the mushrooms were sliced. "I hope when we go back that Haven will have decent reserves of food... I'd be kinda sad if I couldn't cook... or had to put up with more of that mush that they fed us in the underground."

Jak echoed her thought with a slight gagging motion and a nod. In the underground the food they'd been given was a white mushy substance that may have been trying to be oatmeal, but tasted like runny eggs. It may have been palatable with some salt, but that was assuming they had access to such a luxury. "I'm sure you'll come up with something. Looks like you're just using odds and ends right now."

"It is kinda my style." She agreed while dumping the mushrooms into the hot butter, opening the jar she'd retrieved earlier and giving it a quick sniff before pushing a small amount of its contents into the pan as well, giving it a quick stir with the wooden spoon. Jak could detect a strong smell after that that was interesting in the realm of appetizing. She looked back at him while screwing the jar shut. "Garlic." She said to his somewhat befuddled and curious face.

She was getting good at reading him.

"So how are you going to hide me again tonight?" He asked as she had yet another cabinet open, this one full of spices. He watched as her body displayed a ridged moment, as if the reminder disturbed her.

"See, I was trying not to think about that... mood-ruiner." She whined, picking out a few jars of various greens and a container of salt. The salt she sprinkled over the mushrooms while the herbs went into the now simmering water in the saucepan. "I figure if I explain you as one of Damian's friends it'll be easy enough to go out on the bikes on the excuse that you're going over to his place to hang out before you go home. Then we just go, waste some time, I come back and you take the long way around back and come inside through my window. It's how I come and go from the house all the time; there's no lights on the east side of the house where my window is..."

She shrugged slightly, but didn't face him as she put away the things she'd taken from the spice rack, stirring the mushrooms even though they didn't need it right then.

"What's up?" He asked.

He was getting good at reading her too.

"I... well I was thinking... Damian's parents are home a lot less than mine, and we... maybe you could lay low at his place for these last few days instead of here. They never go into the basement; you'd have a whole floor to yourself, and that's where Damian keeps all his games too. It'd probably be best-"

"I don't mind your closet." He'd come up behind her, sliding his arms around her middle. "You trying to get rid of me?"

"In a sense..." She sighed, shaking her head and reaching for the noodle block of ramen, dropping it into the now boiling saucepan. The beef flavor packet had turned the water a reddish-brown.

"Why?" He was his next obvious question.

"We... I..." She struggled with herself, biting her lip while pushing the mushrooms around with the wooden spoon. They sizzled as they turned from white to dark brown, adsorbing butter and excreting water into the hot oil. "We're dangerous together." She said suddenly and all at once, as if she had to push the words out of her mind. "I don't like what my brain does when you're around... how my body reacts... I can't control it, and it makes me angry."

"You sayin' I bother you?" He asked, a tone taking in his voice that was reminiscent of the smirk he'd been wearing not long ago. She suddenly realized just how big his hands were compared to her tiny frame; he'd spread his fingers out over her stomach, able to cover the space completely and nearly make contact with the taboo. He was right by her ear, reminding her of the last time he'd come up to watch her cook.

It had gone a lot like this, only she'd been begging for attention at the time and he'd simply teased her and backed off. She felt the same thing would happen here if she rose to the bait, so instead she did her best to ignore the warm air passing her ear. "Possibly."

"Why does it make you angry?"

She was torn between growling and purring as he dipped his head slightly to tease her neck with the thought of a kiss, not indulging in the action.

"I... it's not something I... it's partially not the right place. It's dangerous anywhere we might be seen... but the other thing..."

He noted her bright red cheeks. She was embarrassed by the way her body reacted to him.

"You remember how young I actually am, right? I... I was already turning into a pervert, but my body never did this before. I'd read something racy and I'd get maybe a little warm. Now I'm in knots, and I can feel this weird sensation on my skin... it's like this prickle that tells me when I wanna be held, where I want to be touched... I'm sure most girls grow into this, but thanks to what the eco did to me I never got the chance..." She lifted the wooden spoon to stir the noodles before returning to the mushrooms, the broth on the spoon causing an extra crackle from the oil. "All of the freakin' sudden... and it's scary. I can't trust my body, when I used to trust it with everything."

"It's just new." He pointed out.

"But it's hard to tell just how much of it is really _me._" She turned her head to him slightly, giving him a serious look through her flushed expression. "Lyra has too much fun toying with me... unwanted and sudden rushes whenever I let my guard down. Doesn't _he_ ever do that to you?"

He shrugged, still holding her while resting his head on her shoulder. "I'm good at blocking him out. Unless I've got enough eco coursing through me for a transformation... I'm alright at ignoring whatever he might have to suggest. I can feel him, watching all the time... and sometimes I find myself being a little more rough than I'd expect, but I don't really try to draw the line between who I am and who he is. I just think of what I _want_ to be, and try to drag the whole package in that direction. Fretting about identity is pretty pointless."

She didn't answer him at first, his last statement striking a cord with her. She'd always been very secure in her identity. Lauren Randolph; smart, logical, practical. That was her. Strong when she needed to be, able to organize others fairly well. Not very good at adapting to new situations but determined and hard-headed. Just a little perverted, but mostly un-interested in romance. That was her. That had always been her.

But now she was emotional. She'd blamed it on all the things getting thrown at her in Haven, and then on Lyra's influence, but many of the things she'd gone through, many of the times she'd lost it, had been due to things that Lyra didn't feel. The truth was that more than her body had been kicked forward when the eco sped up her aging process. Her logical brain was now struggling with teenaged hormones... and as unfamiliar as they were, they were still part of _her. _

Just incredibly new. She got angry because she was scared of all of it, but another truth was that it was also incredibly exciting. As strange as all these things were, she found herself smiling as she once again noticed him breathing on her neck.

"It would still be pretty bad if we got caught." She pointed out while reaching for the saucepan. The noodles were done, and she dumped the whole mix on the frying mushrooms. At once steam billowed up as the oil sizzled, her hand hurriedly putting down the pot to shut off one burner and turn the one under the frying pan to medium heat. She used the spoon to vigorously stir and keep things from burning to the bottom of the pan.

He snickered, letting go of her while finally indulging the tingle across the back of her neck with a single kiss. "Then I'll be nice... for now."

What small amount of red had managed to fade from her cheeks came raging back, the single contact he'd given her setting her spine on fire. She turned to see he'd retreated out of the kitchen to sit on one of the bar stools on the other side of the counter, grinning mischievously at her as she growled at him. With a full glare set in she may have looked somewhat intimidating, but any of that image was quickly ruined when her body decided she needed to yawn.

As usual, after a long and gaping yawn, a high pitched squeak emitted from the back of her throat.

He couldn't help laughing at her, quickly ducking under the wooden spoon that was thrown at him.

* * *

**The Author's Corner**

New chapter? We finally have a new chapter? HOLY SHIT.

So yes, I am here. Here's the chapter. Had some fun times. Loor's gonna go take a shower now.

See you next time punks.

-Loor


	22. Stupidity

**No ownage. Sorry. **

**Vacation or War- Return  
****Chapter Twenty Two- Stupidity**

Just finishing breakfast had been a struggle for Loor. Despite her insistence that Jak play nice for now, she kept looking at him. Her body was at war with her mind as she demanded sense out of fear of getting caught by her sister, but the rest of her took that fear and added it into the excitement the rest of her person was already experiencing.

No matter how she reminded herself what being seen would lead to she kept looking at him and thinking about the various places where her person was screaming for attention. A glance at his hands reminded her how big they were compared to her little frame, and how he might feign on holding her innocently only to slide those rough hands either up or down from her tummy. The few kisses she'd gotten from him in all of this time also had her mind ticking for every moment she looked at his face and ultimately his mouth, the back of her neck prickling with goosebumps when she thought about how it felt, and how it could feel again.

She finally forced her head down when he looked up at her, seeming to know exactly what was going on and smirking at her in his devious little way again. With the focus returned to her plate of food she forced herself through it as quickly as possibly, her toe tapping at the air as she sensed he was already done and now looking at her in possibly the same way.

_Unlikely. _She chided herself. _I haven't done much to him. _

_**Not nearly as much as you wanna do. **_Lyra's tone suggested some of Loor's desire, though most of it had very little direction. As much as she itched, she had no idea where to scratch. **_One has to wonder, he's acting alone at the moment... he gave all his eco to us, so whatever he does... it's all him. _**

Loor already knew this, but looking up once more she got caught by him. He was smiling at her deviously, like he was planning something. The idea that he _didn't_ have anything shoving him around from inside his head made her extremely flattered and curious. Without his more savage half, what in the world could that smile be planning?

"Done?" He asked after the beat of silence.

That was her cue to move, since she was. She handled the dishes quickly, wondering what the hell they'd do now. They had the whole day pretty much, the last day of summer, to piss away before things would really get moving again. Ann would be up in a few hours, but before then they'd have the house to themselves.

The idea was as exciting as it was dangerous, and ultimately confusing and irritating. Her reflex was to find a movie or game or something else distracting so they wouldn't end up paying direct attention to each other, fearing she'd fold under scrutiny. And, pulling her in the other direction, were in fact the words that had come straight from her sister's mouth.

_'Understand what you gotta do, and do it. Then, whenever you got a second to breathe, do what you want, and don't waste any time about it.' _

All the got-tos were certainly out of the way for the moment, but her wants felt forbidden to someone her age.

_**Really? You're gonna get on about that again? **_

_Just shut up. You don't have to grow up. You arrived exactly as you're going to be for the rest of her existence, minus whatever influence I can put over your personality, which is little. I've missed out on three years of maturing and fucked myself up good before that. _

"Loor?"

She suddenly realized that she'd gotten to the kitchen and remained bent over the dishwasher while putting away the last plate, her body hanging as she ended up just a little too deep in her mind. She quickly let go of the dish and stood up quickly, giving a sound of surprise as she found him right behind her, colliding with his chest and falling into him the rest of the way with the shock.

She may have been a little sleep deprived.

"Hi..." She tittered, looking up and seeing that he was still smiling.

"Get lost?"

"It's a big dishwasher?" She pulled away from his hands, which had come around her shoulders when she rested her weight on him, to close the large appliance and lean on the counter it was built into. "So, what should we do today? We've got a lot of hours before my parents come home."

She was half expecting him to deflect the question back at her, but instead he took it seriously and considered. It didn't take long before he returned the question with a question. "Are there any places you're really going to miss when we leave? Or places you might want to show me? It's pretty much now or never, so might as well."

She didn't even have to think about it, giving a quick nod. "Then we're going outside. Grab shoes if you want 'em, I'll be on the deck." With that she departed from the kitchen and went through the sliding glass door behind the table, standing on the wooden deck. A glance back told her she wasn't waiting for him, he wasn't going to bother with footwear.

"I pretty much crossed most of the continent on foot without shoes, and that included a volcanic crater. I think I'm good." He snickered, closing the glass door and giving her a push to lead the way. She noticed the cat had gotten outside before that, mewing at her to get in front as well.

"I know that." She snorted at him, getting down the steps to ground level, aiming for the way she took to the woods behind the house. That would require crossing the bridge over the stream, where she'd nearly drowned herself. She wasn't very eager to revisit that place, but all of her favorites were beyond the bridge. "Sandover must have been a beautiful place though... what I'd give to see it with my own eyes."

"The game not a very exact re-creation?" He asked as he also noticed the direction they were going. Even the cat seemed a little confused, giving a somewhat alarmed mew.

"How the hell would I know?" She quested pointedly. "But the whole style of the games... it's different. You may have noticed with God of War, but games tend to carry an art style, despite their semi-realistic look. Your story has a very... cartoony look. Everyone has simplified or exaggerated features, really big eyes, and stuff like that. After I got back I watched Fury play it for a while, and the whole thing looked downright goofy to me, and that was the second game, the adventure we just lived through, where the series actually takes the tone shift in stride." She turned around to walk backwards and talk with him, her cat weaving in and out of her path. "Though, when that was the norm and I first saw you while escaping the fortress... holy shit."

"Pretty good view, huh?" He snickered, grinning at her.

"Not just that!" She disputed. "You gotta understand, you'd been my favorite video game hero for some time by then. To see what I'm used to seeing in animation, suddenly real body and face proportions, and hair and clothes and skin all real as could be... At that moment I was torn between running out and totally feeling you up to see if it was really real or hiding behind that tank so you wouldn't notice me."

He snickered as they passed through the tall and unkempt part of her lawn, nearing the bridge. "I think I would have beaten your face in if you'd run out and grabbed me."

"And I would have totally deserved it." She laughed, bouncing a little. "I probably still deserve it now."

"Not arguing, but why?"

"Hey!" She cried, they were on the bridge and she was laser-locked on his face. She didn't want to look at the water. Her cat had ran ahead as if to make sure she didn't stop over the stream. "Well, put simply, I was obsessed with you before. When you were fictional, fake, I was allowed to fantasize. It was sometimes how I got to sleep at night. To find you a living and breathing person... it's just wrong to subject someone to those kinds of thoughts, right? Before you were my mental plaything, a puppet on strings acting out some really badly written scenes in my head. But not anymore..."

He looked at himself, as if he were checking himself for said strings. "Definitely not. But I'm not sure that deserves a face-beating. How could you have known? You didn't know all of this other crap existed."

"Yeah..." She sighed, facing forward again and dropping back to walk next to him instead of in front of him. The morning was still dim, and it was best to face forward and avoid tripping over random stumps or otherwise in the darkness of the dawn. "But it makes me question what I feel for you sometimes. Am I still worshiping the thought of you, or am I falling for the real you? And how do I tell the difference?"

He shrugged. "I donno. We get along okay, why should you care beyond that?"

She bit her lip, looking at him. "Worried I might get in a little too deep and realize what I felt wasn't the real deal. Emotions are like that... fickle and fleeting. Vivid in the heat of the moment and stale in memory. I don't mean anything by it, I just worry a lot."

He didn't answer right away, the two of them continuing on a trek through long grass and rising saplings. The area beyond the bridge was first a wide field of grasses and wild flowers, a large oak tree in the distance and off to the extreme left marking a corner in the property, standing at the place where the neighbor's east-west fence struck a corner against the other neighbor's soy field running north-south. A long stand of pines continued the north-south running border, also blocking the soy field from direct view, which made Loor happy. Their own back yard made her feel like she was hiking on some remote trail, not in the middle of a countryside neighborhood.

They were taking a curve to the right, following a roughly carved path through birch trees. At first they were little saplings, but the trees grew more mature and thicker as the path turned from east to south, pink shots of light sneaking through the branches as the sun came up. The effect of the path and the trees growing tall on either side was not unlike a tunnel, particularly with the branches stretching over the top and obscuring a clear view of the sky, if any view at all.

"You know you admitted you're falling for me, right?" He asked when the path curved just a little more to the right, the end of the tunnel just a few yards away as the birch split off to the west side of another wide open area of tall grasses, the towering pines on the east side and making the area feel secluded and split off from the rest of the world.

She felt herself turning red, holding back her reflex to punch him in the shoulder. One hand secured around the other arm's elbow to further quash that urge. "I didn't mean to." She muttered.

"To fall for me, or admit it?"

"Yes."

He snickered at her. "So you're scared to just give in?"

"Not really." She laughed a bit at herself, almost bitterly. "My ideas, the things I want to do with you, things I wanna share with you, that stuff doesn't scare me. What scares me is that, like most of my relationships, there will be a few weeks where we find this groove that really works, then we lose it, and then the whole thing just... fades. I'll come back with you, and I'm sure there's some adventures to be had, but what happens when the world _isn't_ ending? When there's nothing exploding, no trouble to be had, will we still even wanna be in the same room?"

"I think so." He smirked. "Honestly, if you look at it that way, the adventures kinda get in the way of two people having any sort of relationship."

"And if you're wrong?" She insisted. "And it turns out we need the adventure to connect?"

He suddenly stopped, just as the trees split apart into the separate lines and left the field open for them, grabbing her by the arm and drawing her into his chest. She tripped a little on the uneven ground, but relaxed once securely held. "Then we'll _make_ an adventure. I'm sure there's plenty of trouble for us to get into without the world falling apart at the seams."

She returned his grasp with a hug, standing straight in his arms while looking up. "You don't look worried at all... I don't get how you can be so sure."

"I already know you're the one for me. There's no doubt about it in my mind." He lifted one hand to take one of hers, pushing her fingers up to flatten their palms together. She noted how much bigger his hands were than hers. "You accept me as I am... I know you can handle me."

"That's because I understand you." She sighed, almost sounding like she was on the defense. "Just because we went through the same shit doesn't necessarily make us compatible."

"It's more than understanding." He'd bent his forehead to hers by now, touching noses with a smile. "You're not afraid of me. You fear what's in me, like any sane person should, but you don't lump me in with it. With _him. _I'm not a monster in your eyes, when everyone else insists on seeing me that way. Even Daxter doesn't get it completely; just because I have the same face when I change he assumes I have to be in there, somewhere. In fact, I'd dare say that's _your_ proof as well."

"My proof?" She snorted. "I knew what I was walking into."

"And was Dark nearly as scary in your... _idea_ of me?"

She blinked, remembering the one time she's felt the animal's cold teeth on her throat. His attempt at asserting dominance, where he could have just as easily killed her. In that moment, she had almost wished for death. "N... no. I could have never imagined the feeling of being hunted by something that looked so human, yet not. He's terrifying."

His head shifted a little to come down and kiss her gently at the realization, returning to resting against her brow with a smile bigger than before. "See? I don't think any illusion could have survived that."

She blinked, still trying to get the feeling of shock out of her system. She was always better at figuring things out when she talked to other people, but she rarely had these realizations around the people they concerned. Before she knew it she found the words she wanted to say, and knew they were the same words that would likely lock her life into place.

That place being at his side.

"I love you." She spoke clearly, leaning on him and shifting her fingers to close around his hand, pushing her nose under his jaw as her head found the perfect place on his shoulder. She always imagined those words whispered, murmured, forced out of her in embarrassment, but she said them without any flush on her face. She held no shame at this revelation, nor in proclaiming it.

"Are you sure?" He teased, smirking after all of her worry and fretting.

"Would I say it if I wasn't?" She shot back, using her nose to bump his jaw with the force of a nudge. "As young as I am... this feels real. 'Course that doesn't count for much... but... fuck it I get to trust myself just this once."

She listened to his chuckle through his chest, feeling the smile on her face spreading wide to the point that some of the muscles involved hurt. She didn't smile that much in times previous, but now she felt like she just couldn't stop. The energy made her pull away from him, still wearing that blissful grin as he gazed at her in curiosity. Last he checked, they were having a moment, and he was more than content to continue that moment.

But she just couldn't hold still that long.

She suddenly bolted, her feet knowing the land more than well enough to bound through the grass that was often taller than she was, whooping with the exhilaration that came with challenging someone else of able body to a race through what was essentially her territory. She felt wild, more so than usual when she was out there. Her time outside connected her to a part of her mind that she would always regard as savage; the animal that lived within her person, the part of her personality that she fully expected to have been fully taken over by Lyra.

But she still had it, and it had come to bare as she launched herself in long strides towards the far end of the property, only catching a glimpse of her competition through the grass. He was keeping up, surprised yet pleased, wearing a smile like hers. Could he feel it too? The sudden wild compulsion to forget humanity and embrace the beast?

There was nothing of their special brand of duality here. This was something Loor had felt for all of her life, and was convinced any person could feel if they let themselves soak in the untamed world for a moment. Clear air with the warming sun drove her mind into silence, leaving no room for anything but reaction of the land under her feet. Her lungs filled with the sweet scent of pine and dew, drops flying from the grass she passed and misting her hair.

Amid the grass stood a single lonely maple tree atop a rise. That was the property line's western border. That was the goal.

A goal she never made.

In a moment she'd been impacted from the side and forced into the soft ground, yelping and fighting against the encumbrance that came from being tackled mid-stride. From full run they tumbled together in a heap of limbs, eventually coming to a stop and sprawling in the incredibly tall grass.

The sky was still a lovely shade of violet that faded into orange, getting brighter all the time. On the flat of her back, she stared at it, panting and ignoring the fact that he was on top of her, laughing at the whole event. She was too busy soaking in the morning, that simple feeling that her existence was no more than the here and now, with no greater implications than the ones she saw directly.

She rolled over, sitting on his stomach and looking down at his happy expression. "What was that about?" He asked, looking up at her with wide and excited eyes. He was enjoying her in this moment of detachment.

"Just a bit of competition, which you ruined." She answered, hardly noticing that her hat had been knocked off somewhere in the exchange. She didn't care.

"You ran." He defend. "I caught you."

"It was supposed to be a race." She leaned down, crossing her arms on his chest and sliding her body down to comfortably lay on him, not considering how they met at various points along the way. "I wanted to see if you could keep up."

"I kept up enough to knock you over." He pointed out, his hands settling on her hips. "But you're pretty quick now... I'd say we're pretty fairly matched on foot."

"But we didn't finish." She whined playfully. "And it's too close to call it a real race now..."

She leaned down, forgetting if she had an ultimatum, and kissed him while she felt she had the upper hand. Away from the maddening world she was able to enjoy the contact, letting her curiosity lead her by the bit. Like times previous she found him sucking on her lower lip, returning the action by doing the same to his upper, pulling up and away to change the angel before returning. Then, feeling daring, she changed it completely to become more open, using her tongue to encourage him to do the same.

Her arms had shifted, cradling his head so her fingers could play with his hair. With a shudder she felt his hands sliding up her back, under her shirt, as she twisted yet again for a new direction to attack him from.

Finally coming free of his lips, not returning for another taste as much as she wanted to, she shook her head.

"We should take it easy... before we end up doing something dumb."

He took hold of her and rolled, shifting her to the bottom and taking her wrists in hand to trap her. His grip was not forceful, not threatening, but certainly insistent. He didn't speak, simply coming down to start at her lips, fading off to the side to nibble her ear and come down her neck, teasing one of the tendons that stuck out when she got tense.

He bit her gently, drawing a soft moan from her lips.

"Stupid... we're being stupid..." She muttered, the tone of protest she attempted falling more than flat. "... for just five more minutes."

* * *

**The Author's Corner**

This chapter. This fucking chapter. It tripped me up for more time than I even WANT to think about. I tried to write it so many ways. I tried to skip it, I tried to make it fun, I tried to make it filler... but it turned out I just needed to think about it a different way, and there it was.

FUCK I hate it when this crap happens.

Hopefully the next update will be faster... no promises.

-Loor


	23. Falling In

**I do not own Jak.**

**Vacation or War- Return  
****Chapter Twenty Three- Falling In**

The fact that he hadn't said 'I love you' in return, didn't bother her.

Jak had never been a very vocal person; if there was something he could show her instead of say to her, that was the way he preferred to express it.

And she was certainly getting it now.

Pinned beneath him, held at the wrists, and every one of her fears stolen away by his curious and rebellious lips, it was all she could do not to purr whenever he crossed a spot of skin more sensitive than the rest, or successfully chased down a group of nerves that were specifically crying out for attention. His body curved to meet her at every possible point, and pressed hard between him and the ground she was growing more and more aware of his excited state.

"We don't want to be _that_ stupid..." She muttered, though her body wouldn't even respond to her demand for it to struggle.

He didn't respond at once but to loose her wrists, his hands diving for her stomach to push her shirt up while rubbing her body. Again she was reminded how big his hands were, her shirt lifted up to the point of her sports bra while his palms covered her ribcage. His fingers dared to touch the overly tight elastic band that kept her contained.

Her response was to tangle her hands up in his hair again. Her intention had been to grab him by the hair and rip him away from her body, to keep him from teasing her, but instead she started scratching his scalp.

He reacted with pleased noise out of his throat, her shirt getting pushed up to her armpits, her stressed black sports bra exposed.

He managed to hook his thumbs under it, despite the tight fit.

She went tense; despite all of the enjoyment she got of a few kisses, she felt a short shot of fear. _She_ still wasn't totally comfortable with her body. Sure, he'd seen it once before, but that was an accident... and far from an intimate situation.

Now he was bowed at the crest of her body, looking up at her and waiting for something.

She looked down, reading his expression and finding her fear replaced with surprise. His eyes asked, rather calmly she noted, for permission.

She sighed softly, pushing herself up and forcing him to sit up. Her legs folded around his hips to sit on his lap once he was upright, her elbows resting on his shoulders as he held her around the back. She left her lips on his forehead, the real world coming back as she was given time to think about it. The illusion of an unknown wood at the edge of the world was lost, the breeze stirring the long grass of her back yard and reminding her that she was within shouting distance of her house, and a suburb that had been recently built just under a mile west of the property.

Of course, she did have a pretty strong shouting voice.

He didn't sit idle in the silence, nursing the exposed inches left open by her shirt still being hiked up to her collar, the hair on his chin occasionally tickling her as he raised his head to go above the bunched up fabric and once again kiss at the bottom of her jaw.

He knew it was unfair to tempt her, but he liked it better this way. Had he any eco in his system, he might have forced her by now, and hated himself for it. Left to his own mind and devices he'd rather try and tease her into submission, as remote as the chance was.

He knew just how small that chance was, particularly now that she was thinking again. Worrying again.

She bent her head further, to hang her face next to his. It was clear she was torn, opening her mouth to speak only to think better of it and heft a sigh instead. One might have expected Lyra to be trying to persuade her, and perhaps the animal was, but not with words. No, her body screamed for more of what he was giving her. She wanted to force his head up and kiss him again, shove him into the ground and have her own way with him.

Her comfort was the look that had been on his face. The fact that he was waiting for her answer made her feel safe in his arms, made the whole idea feel less frightening. He was waiting for the go-ahead. He cared about her comfort.

"If..." She started only to pause as he bit her again, dragging his teeth along her neck and making her want to bite him back with twice the force. "If we play a little further... will you stop when I say to? _Any_ time I say to?"

He returned with a sigh of his own, expressing a measure of frustration. "I've never been this far before." He admitted. "In theory, sure... I'm pretty good with self control."

Pretty good didn't cover it. He could deal with his darker side raging full force and not even bat an eye if there was something more important to pay attention to. "I want it..." She huffed quietly, the dawn getting warmer on her back. The dew was beginning to burn off, full daylight coming. Even as the warmth came her body shivered over him, shifting slightly against his hard place. Just her awareness of it made her itch on the inside, twisted up and knotted around a hot stone in the pit of her stomach. "... I want you." She amended, gritting her teeth against what felt forbidden to her.

He snickered at her, his hands sliding to her front for his palms to creep up her ribs once more. She felt the warmth of his hands as they lay over the fabric of her bra, cupping her and brushing his thumbs over points of sensitivity. A gasp of surprise came out of her as she sat up straight, as if hit by an electric shock, a pleased groan coming a moment later as he whispered in her ear. "We'll just leave this on then, okay?"

She almost whined. A moment before she'd been afraid for him to see her, the next the itch had extended from her most private parts to all of her private parts. Before the heat had been confined between her legs, licking at her spine but not traveling it. Now, as if the connection had been made the instant he'd touched her nipples, even through the fabric, the burn and another feeling made the pink tips of her breasts swell. The erect nubs were noticeable on the outside, and he used that fact to attack them with more accuracy. "You..." She muttered. "You could..."

He didn't speak to her, not responding to the new permission either as he relaxed back a little further in the grass to push his hips up to her. The action demanded reaction, and she yanked his shirt off of his back as if to encourage him to undress her properly.

Another soft chuckle met her ears as he pulled her shirt over her head, his hands returning quickly as if he feared her chest would get cold without him protecting and holding her. She only now realized her hands were taking in his shape, thumbs pressing over his abdominal muscles as she left her nose against his neck, inhaling the smell that came off of his body and his hair. He was delicious in every sense of the word, and she couldn't help a bite.

She laid teeth to his neck, hands gliding over his chest and onto his arms, forcing them up, his hands pulled away from her, as she continued taking in his muscles with her sense of touch alone. Soon she was holding him the same way he'd been holding her, sitting atop him, and diving at his lips for a new and more violent kiss.

The itch remained. The demand to be touched; it was all over her now, driving her insane. Her whole body felt like a hotspot, and the hotspots felt like she'd lose her mind if they didn't get attention.

But she ignored it, kissing him, _touching_ him. She had his hands, but soon abandoned them to return to his body, this time sliding down instead of up.

Her own palm, so small compared to his, slipped between them to hold his arousal in her hand.

She wasn't clueless, despite her actual age. She knew the basic mechanics of sex, and the concept excited her. More than that was his voice; when he actually groaned at her touch she felt her insides melt, turned on by the fact that she'd made him feel good.

"Are we..." He had to pause as she rubbed him through his borrowed night pants, her kisses trailing to the side of his mouth and over to his ear to nibble. "Still being stupid?"

"Very." She muttered, breathing in the scent from his hair once more, having to nose it aside to get to his ear. "Very stupid... Dumbest I've been my whole life... and I'm loving it."

"Then let me touch you." He almost growled these words, sitting up and dislodging her hand. She wasn't sure how to respond at first, but thankfully her body was moving independent of her addled mind. Soon she had her back rested against his chest, leaning into him as he once again nursed the spot on the back of her neck.

She moaned in his grasp, holding his knees as his legs rested at her sides, slightly bent and ready to capture her... as if she'd run away now.

Finally, her bra was pushed up. The elastic relented, but her breasts came loose in the end, falling into his eager hands. Her head fell back as this new activity began, outside hands teasing her just as clumsily as she'd been going at him, but with the same resolve. He didn't shy from this new situation; he just made sure to be a good listener. He watched her reactions, pinching gently to pull or tug as she proved to be very vocal.

"...it hurts..." She muttered, pathetically sprawled in his lap, a victim of the sensation.

He hesitated, his hands loosing her chest and resting on her ribs. "Sorry." His apology came quickly, his breath coming out in a shuddering rush.

"Not that." She took a hand from his knee, grabbing his hand and pushing him down her stomach, under the waistband of her own pants. "...here... it's so hot it burns... please..."

She was still guiding him as he nodded against her neck, bringing him past moist curls of hair to wet folds of smooth flesh. She directed his pointer finger with her own, pressing him into the fold and against what felt like a stiff nub, tiny but clearly of importance; she twitched forward when he took the initiative and rubbed his finger against it.

She then drew her hand out, since he didn't need any further direction, and let off a different groan.

This one was of disgust and disappointment.

"Are you kidding me...?" She muttered, shaking her head. "Fucking hell..."

He looked, wondering what could have upset her at this point. Had he done something wrong?

Her fingertips were stained red. It looked like blood but it smelled different, and he quickly realized that it didn't matter how far they'd come today, they wouldn't be finishing the job for a while.

"God hates me..." She muttered, brought crashing down to earth as he removed his hand and wiped it on the grass without looking. "A lot."

"Not_ that_ bad..." He muttered, holding her with his clean hand, helping her get her bra back down. "Just have to wait a while."

"A couple _days_ a while..." She growled, still in knots. The strange ache that had driven her to ask for his touch was even worse, but it would be disgusting to continue. She noted her shirt not very far away, leaning away from his lap and trying to ignore the guilt she felt for leaving him the way he was... again. "We'll be back in Haven by the time we get another chance..."

He was right next to her, retrieving his own shirt from the dirt. "We have an apartment set up for us back in Haven thanks to Ashelin." He pointed out with a smirk. "I think we can both look forward to having a room to ourselves..."

"At least till the next adventure starts." She agreed, though quietly. She wondered if Haven had any forms of birth control similar to what she knew, such as the pill or the shot. She had no doubt to condoms; every society since Egypt had condoms of some sort, but something in her mind pulled back form the idea of rubbers. It sounded so... _unnatural. _Granted hormone treatments weren't much better than manipulating nature, but at least she wouldn't have to think about it at point of contact. "C'mon, I gotta get back to the house and get a pad before I start bleeding through my pants."

He nodded, standing up and offering her a hand to get up, the two of them mostly silent on the way back.

* * *

_**Why are we bleeding? Are we hurt?**_

Lyra's tone of fear and concern was almost shocking as Loor got to her bathroom, first using the toilet and noting her underwear; she hadn't bled into it much, it must have just started. Still, after finishing her business she stripped of the sodden garment and tossed it into the sink, running cold water and grabbing the fresh pair she'd taken from her room. _Not blood._ Loor reported quickly. ___Endometrial__ tissue. Interesting that it's red... you'd think it'd be purple, since it is a lot like blood... the eco must not be too mixed up in my reproductive system. _

**_I am not sure what you're talking about._** Lyra admitted, confusion making her usually seductive and sensual voice sound more like a lost little girl in a world much bigger than herself.

_Look it up._ Loor suggested, getting a pad from her bathroom cabinet and fitting it to her fresh pair of underwear, pulling them on and letting off a sigh as she felt Lyra searching through all the information in her brain. The animal really needed just take an afternoon to adsorb everything their brain had to offer.

_**Ick.**_ She didn't sound impressed when she found it. **_We're supposed to do this once a month? What kind of creature bleeds for a week and doesn't die? _**

_It's not blood._ Loor was looking into her mirror, but she was really looking past the image on the reflective pane. _It's material that builds up so, if the opportunity should so arise, I can reproduce. Y'know, have babies. It's what sex is all about... it just means everything is functioning the way it should, which I suppose should be a relief after what the Baron put me through. Not that I've ever thought about kids seriously, but I'd be pissed if he... broke me. _

_**Sex had a point aside from fun? **_

Loor hefted a sigh, shaking her head from side to side. _Actually, in most animals, fun isn't even part of it. Feel lucky we're human... mostly. _

_**We were. **_Lyra's confusion had subsided, but it was clear she was frustrated by the fact that as long as Loor was on the rag any type of fun she was interested in would have to be put on hold. **_Why didn't we do this before? We were in Haven for at least a month, if not more. _**

_Stress. _She was starting to come back to herself, looking at her tired face and frowning. _Stress on the body, emotional stress, and shittons of physical activity can put the cycle on full stop until conditions are better. If the body doesn't think it can handle reproducing, it doesn't try. I was in panic mode for pretty much all of my time in Haven... it's understandable if I missed a period. I wasn't even thinking about it. Seriously, just read up... or however it is you adsorb information from my mind. Its easier than explaining it. _

_**Later. **_The animal sounded indifferent now. She didn't continue after that, and Loor had an awareness of her relaxing; resting. Lyra was checking out for a while.

She wasn't sure how happy she was about that. She was still staring at the mirror, trying to make sense of her own body. Taking the time here had not calmed her down in the slightest, her mind constantly going back to all the simple little things they'd done that had driven her quite crazy. She felt squishy on the inside, and though she knew it would only be more torture she was still jonesing for more attention.

Attention she most certainly couldn't have. Not right now, anyway.

A knock on the bathroom door made her jump, covering her mouth to try and stop herself from yelping. Sadly, her hand was just a moment too late, the startled sound escaping.

"You about done in there?" Jak quested from the other side, waiting for her. She'd tried to send him upstairs to the couch, but trying to give him orders was beyond futile.

"Y-yeah." She stuttered, embarrassed that she'd jumped so badly. Washing her hands, she opened the door shortly after inspecting her nails to make sure there was no trace of red. Satisfied, she opened the door to find him with his arms crossed over his chest, leaning on the wall and smiling at her.

"Hiding?" He asked, looking like he was hardly bothered with what had just happened outside.

"No." She said while trying to put the fire and defiance back into her voice. She hated how meek she could sound when someone spooked her. "Just having a chat with myself. She was worried we were hurt." She snickered, shaking her head at how odd the concept was. "So, what now?"

"I think that's my line, since it's your house." He pointed out, dropping his arms and standing away from the wall. "Though, if you want my suggestion, I say nap."

She blinked, remembering that they'd woken up at a downright ungodly hour. A nap sounded heavenly. In fact, the blanket she'd stolen from him this morning was still hanging on the railing, and could just as easily be taken up to the couch on the upper floor. "Sounds dandy." She conceded. "Grab the comforter off of the rail and go up to the couch. I'll nab a pillow from my room and be right up."

He nodded, moving to step past her but catching her shoulder in the same motion. Before she knew it she was brought into his chest for a hug, and then turned and trapped against the wall.

"Jak!" She protested as loud as she dared, so close to her sister's room.

"Shhh..." He hushed against her forehead, leaving a kiss with a smile. "I nearly forgot."

"Hm?" She was looking up, feeling the fire come back. Even though she was trapped, or perhaps _because_ she was trapped, this was turning her on. Her hands could easily go from resting on the wall to holding him, all she needed was the excuse.

His head dipped next to her ear, his lips touching the edge that felt as if it had been cut since she'd come home. She actually missed having the longer variety. She briefly imagined what it would like to have a trailing lick go along the upper ridge, only to get shocked back to reality by words that were murmured into her hair.

"I love you too."

She'd already known. She'd been able to read that out of his body language when they'd still been outside, but to hear him say it sent her to a whole new realm of flushed and excited. Her cheeks began to burn like the rest of her body as he kissed her neck gently. A smile was spreading that made her jaw hurt, one that didn't die down as he suddenly released her to go and get the blanket like she'd asked. He paused at the foot of the stairs, looking back at her with a similar smile.

She giggled slightly, pushing her hair back while trying not to blush so hard.

"See you up there." He said when she couldn't find her tongue.

She nodded a little, turning to her room, though it took her several moments to remember what she was doing there.

The phone rang when she finally remembered she needed to grab a pillow. For the second time that day she yelped in surprise, nearly jumping out of her skin before rushing to answer it.

It was her mother; her parents were finally back in cell phone range and within four hours of home. Telling her mother about the guest that was currently at the house, Loor realized she's forgotten her hat outside.

* * *

**The Author's Corner**

Hi. No excuses. I'm not gonna talk about it. Here's the chapter, and let's just keep moving.

I've lost my rights to the character Alex, so she will not appear in later portions of this fanfiction, nor be mentioned. Apologies for the inconsistency.

-Loor


	24. Attention

**I don't own Jak.**

**Vacation or War- Return  
****Chapter Twenty Four- Attention**

No one had bothered the wake the teenagers sleeping on the couch until dinner was about to be put on the table. Ann had been awake by the time Mom and Dad had come home, so she'd helped out in moving their bags into the house and putting things away. After that there was a thought of waking the two in the living room, but they just looked so peaceful, nuzzled up to each other with a shared blanket, tucked together with the same pillow. They must have been so tired; Lauren had laid down to sleep with a hat still on her head, the brim getting smashed. And whomever she was tucked in with must have given her some peace of mind; both he and she had the hint of a content smile.

When it was finally time to wake them, Ann was given the honors. Ann, being a big sister, started with finding her little sister's foot and tickling it.

Lauren woke with a jump that quickly woke her guest, the both of them falling off of the couch in a heap.

Dinner started with younger sister whining at elder, and then moved on to friendly conversation. Questions were asked about Lauren's mysterious guest, whom she explained as being a new kid in town that she met through Damien. Jokes were made about how well they'd hit it off with each other, the subject then getting dropped for everyone's general report on things. Mom and Dad talked about some of the fun things that happened at the Labor day party, including an incident where Mom had rolled an ATV on top of herself and managed to get free before anyone came to her aid, and stories from old friends they hadn't seen since the party last year.

Food was finished with Mom offering their guest a ride home, one that was politely declined; he could bike back to Damien's place. He'd need Lauren to show him the way though; he didn't quite remember which road to turn on.

With that agreement, though reluctant, they both left the house as soon as the dinner table was cleared.

In exactly the time it took to bike to Damian's house and back, Lauren had returned alone. She put her bike away, went for a bath after helping put a few things away, and ended up in her room after removing her contacts and other items of disguise. Her family would leave her be; mom and dad were on their way to an early bed after a weekend of drinking and partying. Ann would be up late, but she would be upstairs, watching TV.

And no one would bother Lauren. She had school tomorrow. She needed her rest.

And rest she did, right after cracking her window open and removing both the screen and the bar that restricted it's mobility in the frame. It was just a crack, letting the late summer breeze into her room. Evening was on it's way, but the darkness wasn't complete just yet. Shadows could still creep on the window.

And shadows would creep, and crawl through the opening she left. Without the bar that the window usually rolled on it was easily pulled wide from the outside, and then gently shut.

Already tucked in, Loor didn't move as her guest entered her room through her window, simply looking up with a smile as he came to kiss her on the brow.

"I like it here." He said quietly, aware the people might still be awake and nearby.

"Are you kidding?" She laughed at him. "Jak, it's boring. A whole lot of nothing going on."

"Yeah, but it made a good vacation." He grinned at her. "Not saying I'd like to live in a place like this, you're right, it's way too slow. But for a breather... it was nice."

"Ain't over yet..." She muttered, rolling her eyes and shaking her head. Despite their nape she still felt exhausted. Today had not treated her well.

"Almost." He reminded, detecting the frustration in her voice.

"And tomorrow is going to suck big time for you." She turned onto her side, watching him as he sat on the edge of her bed, yet to go to his closet. It was dangerous for him to be out in the open, but she wasn't going to yell at him. Yet. "I'll be at school all day... Ann will be too. Mom will be sleeping, Dad at work, so you'll be able to chance the kitchen and feed yourself, but other than that you gotta stay down here and quiet. It's gonna be boring as fuck..."

She didn't mention the fact that she'd be losing her mind as she worried about coming home to find him caught and her family demanding an explanation.

Either way, he didn't seem too worried. "Calm before the storm, the way you make it sound." He said, citing her various mentions of another adventure. Another game.

She nodded slightly in the darkness, giving him a push off of the bed with her knee, growling when he barely budged. "Go on, I have to at least _appear_ alert tomorrow. I should get some sleep."

Instead of getting up, he flopped over her. The argument began to start, but remained in hushed and teasing tones as they fought about the proper place of bedtime in the current situation. Though a winner was never officially declared Jak called it a victory in his book, keeping her up well past midnight.

* * *

Lauren awoke to her mother's wake-up call, jumping when the knock came at her door and shouting to confirm that she was indeed awake. Her room, dark and somewhat cool in the morning hours, made her cling to her bed covers for as long as she dared before clumsily sliding out and seeking both clothes and the light switch.

Wincing with the light, she yanked on borrowed and ill-fitting jeans, tying up with a belt and tossing on an oversized T-shirt over a stressed sports bra. Feeling suitably frumpy for school, she drug a brush through her hair before donning the hat she'd mostly crushed during yesterday's nap, hastily digging out socks as her toes froze against her laundry laden carpet.

Dressed to remain unnoticed to the best of her ability at school, she cracked her closet open with a secret smile. It was like opening a treasure chest to check on the precious loot inside, a totally shit-eating smile on her face.

The joy with this treasure was he smiled back at her, leaning up to steal the kiss she'd been planning to give, making her giggle. "Hi there..." She muttered, blush painting her cheeks.

"Morning." He returned. "How long?" He asked.

"Mom'll be back in a few to make sure I'm moving."

He nodded, reaching out and dragging her into his hiding spot before she could protest.

"Jak!" She found herself both squealing and covering her own mouth, aware that her sister was getting ready in the room next door. "What are you-?"

He put his own hand over hers, cutting off the question. His other arm was around her middle, keeping her from escaping with a tight embrace. Once she relaxed, she realized her closet was a pretty comfy place to snuggle... and get interrogated.

"How long does it take for your mom to go to bed after you go?" Came first.

"Bout an hour."

"Does she wake up often?"

"Nah, sleeps like a fuckin' rock once she turns on the talk radio."

"Think she'd notice if a bike went missing?"

"I doubt she'd check the lean-to... what the hell are you planning?"

He snickered. "What makes you think I'm planning something?"

"You got that look on your face." She huffed, sitting up from him and glaring, though playfully. "Where did you put the one from last night that you borrowed?"

"Back under the lean-to."

"And no one has noticed it's reappearance." She pointed out. "Don't think I'm not on to you... You can go places, but you better not get into trouble. It'll be my head if you do, and I don't need anyone looking extra close at me when we're trying to get out of here."

"I won't get you into trouble, promise." His smile had grown. "I'll make sure to fork the blame on someone else."

She glared, leaning in to give him a peck on the nose before getting up and leaving the closet. "Just as long as plans don't get ruined. I don't need shit going tits-up now."

He nodded, his words promising but his face promising nothing but trouble.

Sighing, Loor hoofed it to leave her room and take the bathroom to put in her contacts. It was going to be a long day.

Mom made breakfast of eggs and toast, and Ann was eager to leave quickly, driving her little sister to Kingston Middle School before taking off to head for the High School on the other side of town. The ride was uneventful, and Loor was dropped at the door of her school with a black shoulder bag full of notebooks and folders shrugged up on one shoulder, her schedule in the opposing hand.

The schedule didn't really matter, nor did the notebooks. Staring at her old school she already felt like an outsider and it wasn't even funny. KMS was a fairly new building, having opened just six years before. Lauren could remember how huge it had seemed the last time she'd walked the halls. Now, she stood outside and felt as if the building had somehow shrunk. Blinking several times, it took her a full thirty seconds before she could take the walk from the curb to the door and let herself in.

Like all entrances to public buildings, there was a set of doors into the building. One led into a little room with a heater and rough flooring to wipe one's shoes on, and then another door beyond that went into the building proper. Students liked to hang out in the in-between room, and eighth-graders liked to hold the door closed on students smaller than them. Far from being the first arrival, three such upperclassmen were already waiting at the door, hands on the metal push-bar to grab and hold it with all of their combined weight.

Loor knew this group; they were all kids who'd had the door held on them last year. The old group had moved on to high school this year, and this group didn't know her as the person who couldn't be kept out because she'd engage the motor for the handicap door-opener before trying to pull open the door. The noise of the motor spooked most door-holders off, and she'd promptly kick anyone who didn't let go once she was in. She almost looked forward to breaking these newbies in, but the chance never came. She was too tall to be mistaken as the seventh-grader that she was. Instead of holding the door closed, two of the group pushed it open for her.

Not misplacing her manners, she muttered a good-morning while rushing through, feeling even more out of place. She'd been a small kid, but now she looked like she belonged in high school. She wasn't used to not having to fight for shit, and the day continued in a similar way. No one challenged her, even to obnoxiously yell out that hats weren't allowed in school, as she waited for the morning bell. No one commented that she was wearing heavy winter boots in late summer, or stopped to ask her why. No one even went near her; those who noticed her kept a more than safe distance.

It was disturbing. On the first day of school she was usually an object of attention. Why hadn't she dressed up? What was she sketching in her notebook? Did she do anything crazy over the summer?

As much as she hated those questions, since they'd be repeated over and over and over through the day by people she didn't care about, she began to feel lonely. The attention she did get started as curiosity of her fellow students and eventually turned into teasing about her quirks and differences, but the total lack of notice or attention bothered her. Didn't they remember her? She could recognize several of the early kids hanging out in the lunchroom, kids who would take any excuse in a storm to bother her on the first day of school.

Watching her from afar. Glancing at her like she was a new kid, or like she was in the wrong school. Didn't they recognize her?

Growling, she took off her hat and stuffed it into her bag, sitting by the wall and waiting for the first bell.

She wondered what Jak was up to. He clearly planned to bike somewhere, but the only place she'd shown him was Damian's house, and Damian would be joining her at school today, along with Alex and a few other people she knew and hadn't seen since school ended last year. Her group, cobbled together from outcasts, rejects, wanna-bes, and just all-out original weirdos. All of them geeks in their own right, including her. Especially her.

Jak was kinda too cool for her, she noted. Like a lot too cool for her. She was a total dweeb; without her previous rep she couldn't even get some first-day-of-school attention from the students who used to love to bother her for kicks. What kind of idiot can fall off the map _that _effectively? Wouldn't someone at least recognize her and-

"Hey, aren't you that dead girl's friend?"

Relief and rage flooded her at the same time. Such a strange mix, but potent and intoxicating all the same. Lauren stopped zoning to look up and notice that someone had finally noticed her and dared to come close enough to ask a question. Relief came from finally getting attention, but the mention of Fury as simply being 'that dead girl' made her glare up from under her brow.

"Sister." Loor corrected in a terse tone, wearing a secret and ugly smile on the inside. This would be the question she'd answer all day. She would still bathe in both wanted and unwanted attention, but not due to her own quirks or weirdness.

No, she was to both and enjoy and suffer attention due to the last thing she wanted to think about.

Her little sister's sudden and second death. Not that they knew that. They couldn't possibly, nor would they ever know or understand that this was the second time Loor had lost her dear little sister.

But she'd tell them time and again that day, until lunch time in fact, that yes it was her little sister that had died suddenly and mysteriously in the hospital. Her body had just given out.

_Because her mind thought she was bleeding out._

The doctors had no idea what took her life.

_Because her life had already been taken once before. _

It wasn't any known poison.

_Because some toxins travel through time. _

The ugly smile inside grew large and twisted as the first bell rang, followed by each class and a fresh crop of students, along with some repeats as rumors bloomed and grew. In first hour someone thought she wasn't actually dead, and her family had taken her somewhere exotic to look for special doctors. By second hour someone was spreading the nasty rumor that Loor had killed her younger sister personally, poisoning her with something no one had ever heard of before. Third hour became a test of temper as a group of boys started insisting that Loor's dear little sister had gone straight to hell because she was a witch, and they'd decided to ask the surviving sister how she felt about that.

Thankfully, third hour was gym, and a lethal game of dodge ball was played after that conversation to blow off some steam. Sadly, though Loor had become a much better shot with a pistol, she was still a terrible shot with a ball. As much power as she could put into a colorful foam ball, she failed to hit any of her intended targets. There were too many kids in the class for her to not hit anyone, but the people who did receive her bruising shots were not the people who deserved it.

The bell for seventh-grade lunch ended third hour, and flooded Loor with relief. Thus far she hadn't shared any classes with any of her friends, and there were several she wanted to see before she left this frame of existence.

She moved quickly, long legs carrying her faster than the other kids to dump her pack on her favorite table and join the line for cheesy garlic bread. Getting in line quickly meant getting back to her table before some jerk decided it would be a good idea to shove her pack onto the floor and try to steal her table; the first day was all about solidifying arrangements that would last through the year.

Thankfully she got out of the line with her tray of food just in time to step up to her chair and glare at a couple of boys who'd been eying her pack with just that intent, intimidating them out of the idea and sitting down with a smirk.

"_LAUREN!" _

It was lucky that she'd been sitting, or she would have gotten knocked to the floor by the sheer force of the glomp that came shortly after her name being shouted at her. Either way, the chair slid a good foot across the floor. Loor yelped, taking hold of the body that had just collided with hers and prepared to heave it off of her on pure instinct before registering just who had thrown their arms around her.

"Eek, Stephie, you're killing me here!" She exclaimed, easing her friend off instead of prying her loose with excessive force. Stephie was a girl of the same age with both a round face and body, along with long auburn hair. She was both sweet and excitable.

"Killing you?" Stephie helped Loor push her chair back to where it belonged. "Look at yourself! I almost didn't recognize you! What's with your hair? Are you dying it in layers? It it true what they're saying about Chelsea? I mean, that she's dead, not the whole poising thing or whatever, that's retarded. And-and-and, Alex says you got a boyfriend now, and he's like totally a hunk and everything! There's this huge summer story I'm totally missing out on and I want _details!" _

Lauren blinked a few times, putting a pinkie in her ear and carefully cleaning it as if Stephie had caused some sort of ringing with her shrill and excited voice.

"Jeez, you're gonna kill her Steph." Came another voice from behind, making Loor twist around in her chair. "Try breathing between sentences."

"No breathing!" Stephie batted back. "Breathing wastes important questioning time!"

Loor laughed as she opened up for an upside-down hug from Stephie's ever present shadow/life mate/best friend; Katie. Tall and thin as a pole, she was always within a few steps of Stephie, calm and trying to use her presence to help Stephie take it down a notch. "Hey! How you two been this summer?"

"Cool." Katie spoke with little enthusiasm, same with her hug, but Loor knew that was just her way. "If rumor is to be believed, you've had a pretty busy one yourself."

"If rumor is to be believed." Loor snickered, still hanging her head over the back of her chair to look at Katie upside-down. She was about to go on, but something caught her eye.

Behind Katie was the door that she'd entered the school by that morning. It could be used as a general entrance, but people stayed away from it during lunch time; visitors and parents came in through the main office, not the cafeteria.

But someone was entering through that door. Loor blinked to make sure she wasn't seeing things.

Sitting up straight, not evening noticing that Alex and Damian had just arrived at the lunch table, she got up and marched for the door to intercept the unexpected visitor.

"Jak!" She shouted as she entered the in-between room. "What the hell are you doing here?"

* * *

**The Author's Corner**

MEOW.

Just meow.

MOVING ON.

-Loor


	25. TagAlong

**I don't own Jak.**

**Vacation or War- Return  
****Chapter Twenty Five- Tag-Along**

Stephie was watching as Loor intercepted a guy who looked like he belonged at the high school; she didn't look particularly happy to see him, which Stephie just couldn't fathom with the way he looked. Handsome was the word, but he had more of an effect than that. There was confidence on his face and in his posture, even faced with Loor going into a full tirade that couldn't even be contained by the thick glass of the door she'd stepped beyond to catch him before he entered the school proper. "Whoa." Was about all she had to say.

"Took him long enough." Damian sounded smug, commenting between chomping on his cheesy garlic bread. "Ick, did they add another cup of grease to the recipe this year? I might as well go back to the pizza line..."

"Fuck if I know." Alex shrugged, neither of them seeming bothered by the appearance of the tall boy on the other side of the door. Whatever Loor was yelling at him, he didn't seem put off by her rage. In fact, he seemed to find it rather funny. "What do you think she's gonna do about him?"

"Do I care what she does with him?" Damian rolled his eyes. "I just told him how to get here, they can figure their own mess out."

Stephie turned away from the door to look at Damian and Alex. "Wait, wait, _that's_ the guy? Her new guy? How old is he?"

Damian deliberated on that question. "Probably seventeen... give or take. What, think he's too old for her?"

"I don't care!" Stephie's voice rose an octave. "He's _beautiful!_ … And kinda familiar looking, now that I look at him. Do I know him? Has he been lurking around before and I just didn't notice something that gorgeous being in the room? Cause if that's the case I'm about to be really disappointed in myself."

"Nah, Loor just met him like... she said it was about a month's worth of time, right?" Alex said, looking disinterested. "Maybe a little more. Little bit of summer vacation romance, y'know. She's fallen pretty hard, though she won't admit it."

"Classic for her." Katie commented, her calm monotone striking a vast contrast to Stephie's jubilant excitement. "Hope she can pull that temper in, teacher incoming."

Several sets of eyes went up, since Katie was right. A male teacher was heading for the door to see what the deal was, since from his perspective it looked like a student arguing with an outsider to prevent entry, which was as security problem meant for the adults.

"Oooh shit..." Damian muttered. "Didn't count on that one."

"I bet that hair hasn't been winning her any points with any of her teachers." Alex added, watching the scene with a little more interesting now. There was a possible disaster impending.

Loor, on her other hand, wasn't facing the door. She was focused on Jak, and had no idea that there was a teacher inbound. She was also focused on the question she'd asked him the second she'd seen him.

"What the hell are you doing here?" She'd been quick to shout, before the door was even all the way shut.

"Visiting you." He had answered matter-of-factly. "Is there some kind of law against that?"

She shook her head violently, fists balled as if she meant to hit him. "You can show up like this, how did you even know how to find me?"

"I have my ways."

"Damian?" She snarled.

"Maybe." He was grinning at her. "So what's the problem? This is a place for kids, right? I'm kid enough. Why can't I just follow you around for the day?"

"Because you're not a registered student!" She snapped. "You can't just walk in like you belong here; teachers have been giving me crap all day cause I look like I'm too old for this place, but most of them remember my face so it's okay. _You_, on the other hand, clearly don't belong here, and I'm unlikely to convince them otherwise!" She then sighed, putting her hands to her temples while sucking in a tense breath, trying to relax as she blew it out. "Okay, this is easy. I just need you to go somewhere else, anywhere else, until school is over."

"No."

"No?" Her shoulders were tense. She was ready to actually hit him this time. "Why the fuck not?"

"Cause I don't want to." He said simply. "And you're going to have to explain my presence whether you like it or not."

"And what's to keep me from beating the stuffing out of you and making it look like an accident?"

"The fact that we both know I'd win that fight... and there's an adult coming up behind you. He doesn't look happy."

Loor turned around as the door opened, admitting the teacher that Jak had noticed just in time. "Is there a problem here?" He asked, the look on his face assuming the worst of the situation. He probably assumed Jak was a high school student playing hookie to visit back to the middle school and try and see some younger friends. "Lauren, who is this?"

Before she could stop herself, she spoke. "Oh, hi Mr. Mathews. Sorry, this is Jak, my cousin. His mom is visiting from Florida, staying with my family, and apparently she just dropped him off here assuming we'd let him in without a parent to vouch for him."

The teacher, Mr. Mathews, raised his brows at the story, but the look on his face became less hard. At school Lauren was a good and trustworthy student, if a tad anti-social. He had no reason not to believe her, particularly since Jak's tan couldn't have come from rural Minnesota without the assist of a tanning bed. "Oh, I see." He shifted his gaze to Jak. "Shouldn't you be visiting the high school so you don't fall behind when you get back home?"

"Tall for my age." Jak said shortly, sticking with Loor's story, hiding his surprise that she'd come up with it so quickly. "I just wanna tag along with her till I have to go home this weekend."

"You'll need a visitor's pass." Mr. Mathews didn't look worried at all now, taking a friendly smile and pointing to another door on the other corner of the parking lot. "Lauren, you can take him over there and help him sign in. Make sure to give them the heads up that this'll be for the whole week."

"Thank you Mr. Mathews!" Lauren spoke with a smile, giving Jak a push towards the door to the outside. "See you in sixth hour!"

* * *

By the end of the day, Loor was in a rather mixed mood. Thanks to explaining Jak away to the front office and getting him signed in without an adult, which was not difficult but was time consuming, she'd missed lunch. Sitting in her seventh hour and last class of the day, her stomach was growling as regular intervals while her science teacher explained the syllabus for this year. She was also irritated because she'd been invited to introduce her 'cousin from Florida' in each class since lunch. Between the jokes about them being a pair of giants and the girls in the class staring at him with insatiable interest, she was irritated and tired.

But there was still a bright spot in her mood. She felt rather special that he'd come all the way across town just to hang out with her at school. She'd warned him it would be boring, but he didn't care. Secret smiles and glances were exchanged all the way through class, though she made sure she didn't look at him too often; everyone in class thought they were family, and the rumors that would bloom if someone saw them looking at each other that way would be downright horrendous.

She hated the rumor mill. A lot. It may have served her at a time, spreading her violent reputation whenever she decided to protect someone from bullying, but for the most part it just made school more annoying.

She nearly cheered outloud when the bell rang to end the day, releasing a rush of kids to run for their lockers. Lauren walked slowly, in no particular rush. Ann would be picking her up from school, and the high school was on the other end of town. By the time she'd gotten to the middle school the traffic would keep her from getting to the parking lot for nearly an extra half hour.

Jak followed her dutifully, watching rather than asking as she waited just inside of the classroom door, waiting for the main rush for the buses to go by before making the approach to the locker bays.

The school was arranged to keep the different grade levels away from each other, each wing sitting at one end of the compass rose design in the center of the floor plan. Seventh grade was at the end of the northern point, and all the wings were the same with classrooms making up the outside edge, an office for behavioral lectures in the center, and locker bays arranged around the office block. Loor's last name was pretty far down the alphabet, so her locker was at the far end of the wing.

Opening her locker and unloading all of her books into the metal storage space, she glanced over to Jak to see him watching her. "So..." She said slowly into the ever quieter air; schools got creepy as the kids emptied out. "What do you think?"

"I didn't know you could have so many kids in one area." He said honestly.

"I suppose, Sandover was pretty small, and we didn't see very many children in Haven..." She shook her head, closing the locker and leaning on it. "This town is actually pretty small, only about six thousand people or so. I think there's five hundred kids in this school... give or take. I used to live a lot closer to a big city, and went to a bigger school... it was a lot worse there."

"Worse?" He asked as she started to walk out of the bay to leave the wing and head to the cafeteria to wait. "This doesn't seem so bad. Boring, but not bad."

"Eh, there's bulling, cliques, rumors, that sort of thing. Stuff kids do when they're bored to make life interesting, I guess. We're a small town so it's not bad, no one brings weapons to school or nothing... in big cities some kids go a little nuts, bring a gun to school and start taking pot shots."

"I'd go crazy too... it's just too many people in one place."

"You're from a small place." She pointed out with a snicker. "You're not used to it. I kinda hate it here, but at the same time I get this weird enjoyment from it. I mean, I hate it when the rumors about me are almost all lies, but it's nice to be noticed. I would hate it if they didn't notice me at all."

"They?"

"The top girls." Loor rolled her eyes, the idea sounded so silly now, the idea of the school hierarchy. "They dress pretty and wear make-up and spread rumors and giggle over guys and so on and so forth. When you got a group of those, there's always a leader. They're not evil, per-say, they just take a lot of pleasure in causing other students pain but throwing out a lot of ugly words. They don't bother with me cause I don't really rise to that kind of stuff, but when they go after someone who is vulnerable to that sort of thing, I tend of get in their faces about it." She laughed a little, rolling her eyes. The idea of verbal insults being painful was also something that seemed pretty silly to her now. "So they do their business at a distance. They can't screw with me or people I know without me coming after them, so they'll start little rumors that'll spread until I can't figure out which one of them started it, so I don't know who to go after. They know I won't do it unless I'm sure."

He thought about it, then shook his head. "Sounds pretty stupid... why do you care if they notice you?"

"I like attention." She admitted, her tone somewhat surprised, as if she'd only figured this out about herself recently. "And I guess they do too, or why would they do what they do? Either way, I'd hate to just not exist in the minds of the student body... I want people to remember me when I've gone, even if it's just lies about me... though that sounds really fucking retarded when I say it outloud."

He nodded, though Loor got the feeling he was only pretending he understood. She didn't expect him to understand anyway; she got the feeling that her want for attention came from the inescapably female part of herself. They came to the compass at the center of the building and continued on to the south point; the hall that would take them to the cafeteria. There was almost no noise up ahead; all the other kids had boarded buses and were about to leave, or were outside waiting for their rides.

"They might not remember you around here, but Haven is gonna remember you forever."

She blinked, looking at him as they entered the huge room that was the cafeteria. She was still leading, her steps aiming for the huge window looking out to the parking lot. There was a ledge under it that was good for sitting on while waiting. "They aren't supposed to even know me." She pointed out, a little bitterness coming into her voice. "And anyway, they'll remember _us. _I was barely a sidekick."

"Hey, if Dax can be a hero, so can you."

She pouted for a moment before giving him a push. "Hush you, you're ruining my pity party."

"Just trying to give you a boost." He assured, pushing her back.

She nodded, but still looked rather glum as she sat on the ledge under the window, looking outside. "I thought I was gonna be famous, you know."

"Eh?"

"I was going to revolutionize energy. Me, a kid. A bullied child turned reclusive genius, discovering liquid energy that would take away the fire hazard that came with electronics, solve storage problems, and change the world. That was going to be me. I thought about it. I'd stare in the mirror and practice what I'd say when the news interviewed me, the way I'd smile when the world thanked me, the way I'd pretend to be modest while I did something amazing and changed everyone's lives. They were all going to be so happy I was so smart, be so happy that I was geeky and weird. They'd be sorry they bullied me, teased me, and made me lonely... and I was going to be so happy when they all looked at me. When I had all of the attention. The attention of the whole world."

Her fists were clenched. Frustration had her eyes slightly damp.

"VC. Volatile converter. That was going to be the name of my fame. And the device that was going to put me on the map, make me a famous child inventor..."

One fist lifted and smashed down onto the ledge.

"The only life it changed was mine. My personal little failure."

He didn't speak, watching her a moment as she stared out the window. Then, gently, he touched her cheek and got her head to turn, giving her a peck on the lips that didn't last more than a moment. "That's not true." He told her. "You changed my life, too."

She stared at him, then smiled slightly, nodding against his hand which now cupped her jaw.

He sat next to her, softer words shared until Loor sighted her sister's car in the parking lot, getting up and leading the way out.

Never noticed by the couple, a pair of dark brown eyes watched them leave with uncanny interest.

* * *

**The Author's Corner**

Hi everyone! Sorry we got bogged down for so long in those few chapters, this book is always the most difficult one to write because there's not much of a middle to it. We're getting to the ending though, and that's a bit more interesting, so it's more fun to write.

MEOW!

-Loor


	26. Weaseling

**I don't own Jak.**

**Vacation or War- Return  
****Chapter Twenty Six- Weaseling**

Despite Loor's vehement disagreement with Jak following her to school, it seemed it would be the pattern for her last few days at home. No amount of quiet pleading before bed would change his mind; he didn't want to be cooped up in her closet all day. He'd arrive earlier next time, of course. He wanted lunch too.

So Lauren awoke on Wednesday, following the same routine as the day before and getting driven to school by her sister. She entered in her usual door with her pack over her shoulder, ready to sit down by the far wall and wait for Jak to show up. It would take him about half an hour to bike from her house to the school, depending on how long he waited to dodge her mother, and it was nearly three quarters of an hour before the first bell would ring. Plenty of time for him to show up.

Plenty of time for her to be bored, leaning her head back on the wall and thinking about sleep. She could catch a nap in that time. Easily, as long as she wasn't bothered.

"Hey, you!"

Irritation came up faster than it should have. The voice calling out to her didn't dignify her with a name, and was soprano. A girl, some little mousy sixth-grader maybe, calling her out. At least, that's what Lauren imagined in her head before cracking an eye open to look, pushing her hat up with a finger to see more clearly.

The person she was actually faced with was worse than an ignorant and uppity sixth-grader. She was small enough to be mistaken for one, but Lauren knew her to be a seventh-grader that was very high in the school's social system. She was mocha skinned with beautifully wavy black hair that reached to the small of her back; a Hispanic goddess in the eyes of the other girls, and serpent tongued to boot. She had dark brown eyes that were usually narrowed to look at other girls with disgust and disdain, but were currently left somewhat wide in curiosity.

"Cuni." Loor used her name as a greeting, or at least the shortened version of her name. This girl's name was very long and very Spanish, and nearly impossible for the average American to pronounce. Loor didn't even know how to spell it.

Oddly enough, Cuni blinked. "It _is_ you!" She exclaimed, coming closer to where Loor sat against the wall. "What the heck happened to you? Take growth hormones or something? You didn't just have to act like a boy, you had to be as big as one too?"

Loor felt as if she had a good comeback, but didn't say it. She just shrugged. "What do you want?" She asked with her irritation leaking into her voice. She and Cuni had drawn their lines in the sand last year, and hadn't spoken since. This little Spanish girl was the queen bee of this school; the prettiest and meanest of them, like a little dog with sharp teeth.

But Loor was a strong willed girl who neither followed nor imitated her. Free minded. And when Cuni went to verbally bully other girls in the grade, Loor stood up for them. The two were thought of, in the most dramatic sense, as opposing leaders within the school. Loor was the reason Cuni didn't talk trash to other girls in the grade, and Cuni was the reason that Loor got attention from the rumor mill. They never spoke directly to each other.

This meeting was strange. Loor wanted to get straight to the point.

"C'mon." Cuni motioned into the hall that led to the compass in the center of the building. "I wanna talk to you, and it's kinda private... girl's bathroom?"

Loor blinked at the short girl a few times, glancing out at the dozen or so kids that hung out in the cafeteria. Since when was any of Cuni's business private? She tended to broadcast her whole life to the school, keeping herself and her family's financial status on everyone's minds. This was getting stranger by the moment, but she figured she'd humor the girl for now. She had nothing to lose.

Leaning forward to stand, she got up and stood tall with her shoulders pushed back, looking down at Cuni and feeling smug that the girl seemed smaller than usual. She might have even taken a step back.

"Good God you are a freak." She commented before turning around and hurrying to the girl's bathroom, along the hall that led to the compass. Loor followed, keeping her pack with her, suspecting everything. Cuni may have been a bitch, but she was a clever little weasel. She'd lost a couple of notebooks to her clique when she left her pack unattended last year, distracted by something one of her cronies was doing. No way she was falling for that trick twice; it had taken months to reproduce the math done in those notebooks.

Tucking that memory away as they entered the bathroom, Loor felt like something was actually up as Cuni checked the stalls to make sure they were alone. Had the little bully had a change of heart? Was she feeling guilty and wanted to apologize in private?

Unlikely.

Finally, she turned and looked Loor dead in the eye. "You kissed your cousin."

Lauren blinked. Of all the things Cuni might have said to her, that was not something she expected. She opened her mouth to deny it, but the words died in her throat. Yesterday, in the lunch room, Jak had kissed her. Cuni must have seen, and like everyone else at school she thought Jak was her cousin. Still, she had to defend herself somehow. "H-He kissed me." She corrected lamely, feeling pink blush spread onto her cheeks.

"It's still wrong." Cuni batted back, seeing Loor's discomfort and weakness. "And it's PDA. You can't do stuff like that, not ever."

"What?" Loor felt herself glaring Cuni a little. "It's my fucking life. Yeah, PDA, but you can stay out of my personal shit."

"Whoa, you mean..." Cuni looked like she wanted to gag. "You _like_ that he kissed you? What kind of sick girl are you?"

Loor blanched, shaking her head. "No, no, that's not what I-"

"Whatever, I'm not even going to finish this conversation. You're a sicko, and I'm reporting you."

Cuni went for the door, but Loor was standing in the way. Even if her tongue was clumsy, Loor's hands were sure. She reached out, taking Cuni's arm and yanking her back into the room, away from the door. "No!" She yelled, a moment of panic and rage making her want to hurt her. Lyra wasn't very far away, cheering her on in the idea of breaking this girl's pretty face on her knee. But, a moment later, she took a breath and let it out, and the anger went with it. "No. You brought me in here for a reason. What do you want?"

Cuni blinked, and then realized her massive advantage. "That's right, I did. And you're gonna let go of me and listen up."

Loor felt her stomach flop, realizing that if she let go she would be obeying an order from her social rival. It made her sick, but she could suck it up. She did let go, but only after pushing her back into the main area of the bathroom, staying between her and the door. "What did you want?" She asked again.

Cuni was grinning with perfect white teeth. "Aside from you, is your cousin single?"

The sick feeling in Loor's stomach got worse as she realized where this was going. "His name is Jak, if you care for it... and no. He's got a girl back in Florida."

"And he's cheating on her with you." Cuni said smugly. "So here's what I want; I've got an end of the summer party going on at my house on Friday. I want you and him to be there, and for you to set me up with him. He's too cool for you anyway."

Loor's repulsion must have showed on her face, because Cuni's smile got wider.

"Of course, I can just go and report you and your kissing cousin to the principal's office. They'd call your parents, and I'm they'd love to hear about this."

The frown on her face grew deeper, but she sighed and nodded. "Fine, fine, I'll do my best to set you guys up at your party." She shook her head, weakly adding, "Don't matter anyway... gimme your address so I can mapquest the place."

It would later occur to Loor that she was actually bluffing. Later, staring at the address scribbled in bright pink pen, sitting in her place against the wall, she'd realize that she and Jak would already be gone by the time Cuni would be expecting them to show up. All she had to do was play along for a couple of days. The little Hispanic girl posed no threat, and what she'd seen wouldn't matter on the following Monday.

No, she'd have vanished by then. Cuni would come to school on Monday looking to humiliate a girl who was already off the grid.

Even with that noted, it didn't get rid of the sick feeling that Cuni had her on a string, even if it was only for a few moments. She wanted to beat the girl's face in, but couldn't. She had to behave herself and keep a low profile until Friday.

Then she'd leave this nightmare and enter a whole new one back in Haven. She guaranteed whatever new adventure was waiting, it would be far more ugly than social head games between girls.

She shoved the address into her pocket and pulled out a notebook from her pack. It was a good time to puzzle on something else and distract herself, quick before she started punching things.

* * *

"She what?"

"Yeah, tried to blackmail me." Loor sighed, leaning her head on the lunch table. Jak had met her that morning and the day had gone on its boring way; the only class that had been slightly interesting to them had been gym. There had been another game of dodge ball, and the teachers had separated her and Jak to make the game fair. Now she was settled with a chicken sandwich and a heap of fries, telling Alex, Damian, Stephie, and Katie about the morning's proceedings. Jak was at her side, already aware of things and wolfing into his food. He'd never had french fries before.

"Bitchface." Alex said, shaking her head. "Who the hell does she think she is?"

"Queen of the fucking school, that's what." Katie had a frown on her face, arms crossed over her chest. "Though I got a question, why did you tell the teachers that he's your cousin? What's the big secret?"

Loor blinked, then opened her mouth. "Uh...-"

"It's mostly the truth." Jak said, quickly swallowing when he saw Loor floundering. "I am visiting, we're just not family... but Loor figured they wouldn't let me in here unless they thought we were related."

"I kinda get why Cuni would do that shit though." Stephie said, smiling between mouthfuls. "I mean, c'mon Jak, look at yourself. If Loor wasn't my friend I'd be after you too."

"Thank you for the respect." Loor mumbled, ducking her head down. Jak was too high-profile for her usual attempts at being incognito at school.

"Hey, Loor, you still got her address?" Damian asked.

"Eh?" Loor glanced over, then nodded, digging the crumpled notebook paper out of her pocket. "Yeah, right here. Why?"

"I've been wondering where her place is for a while. This party might be a great time to egg her house and ruin a bunch of bitchy girls' nights."

"Oh, me too!" Alex perked up, looking excited. "Can I bring tomatoes?"

"Fuck yes." Stephie was grinning too. "All the rotten veggies! And some potatoes to break the windows."

Jak laughed a little, looking to Loor. "I think I like your friends."

"Me too." She handed over the address the Damian, watching as he studied it. "Well? You know the place?"

"Fuck, it's in my neighborhood..." He laughed. "She's been so close by all this time, just a little to the west."

"Ewww, you've been that close to that kind of evil for how long?" Alex groused, shaking her head. "You think you'd be able to smell the snobbery from a mile away."

"Hey, Loor, this might not be such a bad idea." Damian said while sipping his chocolate milk carton. "She's in nearly the exact same area, and it would give you a perfectly reasonable excuse to leave the house. I mean, your mom doesn't like you hanging out at my place too late at night, it might be tough for you to get away. But hey, if you're going to a party you were actually invited to, then your mom can call and verify, everything is valid, and I can practically walk over with the equipment."

"Wait... what?" Lauren looked at Damian with a little of the sickness she'd felt that morning. "Damian, do you understand what you're saying? You're saying it's a good idea to go to a girl's house whom hates my guts, who I've hated back, who thinks I kissed my cousin and is trying to get me to set her up with said cousin?"

"Why not?" Damian raised an eyebrow. "Then Jak can dump her personally, crush her spirit, and you can have a little fun before you go. We all know how you love to dance; I'm sure they'll have music for you to rip it up on. Then you guys vanish, and me and the others can crash the party properly and really ruin her day."

"But, but..." Loor looked to Jak for support. This party was the last thing she wanted to go to. Just the idea of doing something Cuni told her to do, the idea of being controlled by that little bitchy weasel, made her feel sick and angry.

"I wouldn't mind seeing you dance." He said to her pleading gaze, smiling. "C'mon, it's not like you're doing it because she ordered you to."

"You all suck." Loor groused, putting her forehead to the table with a loud 'thump.'

"Where are you going?"

All eyes turned to Stephie and Katie, who were vastly out of the loop on all of this. Loor had totally forgotten they were there when Damian started talking business. At first Loor searched her mind for the words to tell them anything but the truth, but Alex stood up before she could.

"Girls bathroom, now." Alex said, waving them along. "We need to talk in private."

Loor sighed, getting up too. "What is it with women and holding private conversations in the bathroom?" She muttered fruitlessly, aware that she was going to miss out on most of her lunch for the second day in a row.

She needed to learn to eat faster.

* * *

**The Author's Corner**

Two chapters in a row! Yay, I'm on a roll! Though they're probably riddled with errors and sich... either way, we're approaching the endgame fast, and I'm very excited!

MEOW!

-Loor


	27. Quiet Places

**I don't own Jak**

**Vacation or War- Return  
****Chapter Twenty Seven- Quiet Places**

Thursday was boring and anxious, full of scribbled ink as Loor kept her head down in her notebook during classes when she wasn't quietly answering the occasional question Jak would ask about the world she grew up in. It still boggled his mind just how many people existed before the Calamity, though Haven was just as much a bustling metropolis as any city in Loor's era. He'd just seen it during its worst times.

Her notes ranged to many things. Some were quick sketches of creatures unknown, occasionally she drew Lyra, other times she tried to do the math that would let her understand the energy conversion between the VC-M1 and the Precursor Converter that would fling her and Jak back to Haven's time. The math was an exercise in futility; Precursor technology was just beyond her ability to work out or understand, and without some instruction on time travel she was simply working with too little information and too many unknown values. This frustrated her, but she guessed there was a reason the Precursors were regarded as gods.

Jak watched her doing that too, but never asked questions. Not even when she sketched out a picture of Dark, his face twisted into a beastly snarl. He only commented that he hadn't known she liked to draw, among all her other little quirks. Her only relation was to blush and nudge him, shutting the notebook until the next period.

Gym, as usual, was the godsend on the day. Loor's anxiety had brought bits of Lyra out of stasis, agitating the animal and making her question if there was a need to fight. Gym class allowed for a physical release of energy, helping both monster and host relax a little.

For the most part Lyra had been sleeping, resting in Loor's mind, trying to conserve the eco that her body was still using up at an alarming rate. When Lyra stirred it caused a strange feeling in Loor's brain, making her think of a cat waking from a nap to stretch and roll over, but it also brought her attention to her dwindling supply. In an instant, she knew she was only a few days away from getting weak from a shortage.

Thankfully, she was only one more day away from returning to a place where she could hunt up a fresh source.

Coming to lunch was a tad awkward. As of yesterday, both Stephie and Katie had been briefed on Loor's impossible-sounding adventure, the origins of her new guy-friend, and the fact that she was taking off, and never coming back, on Friday. Stephie had been beyond upset, crying and telling Loor she couldn't go. Today, there were no tears, but there were a lot of hugs, from them and Alex too. They understood that tomorrow would be the last they'd see of Loor, and none of them wanted to see her go.

Damian was calmer; he would be there when they went; he had to activate the device for them and do away with the evidence after the fact. He'd get a hug from Loor then, when no one was watching and might notice just how much he cared about his childhood friend.

Loor missed lunch for a third day in a row; she was too stressed to eat.

Afternoon classes went by in a blur, punctuated by one thing. During passing time, Loor caught a glimpse of Cuni on the other end of the wing. The little Hispanic girl had the gall to wink at her, wearing a smile that made Loor want to march over and beat the girl into a locker. She didn't, mainly because Jak saw her tense up and grabbed her to hold her back.

Class ended. Loor went home, made a snack of ramen noodles with mushrooms, and ducked into her room with it before her sister could yell at her for taking food away form the kitchen. Sitting on her bed, occupied with another notebook, she didn't even look up when her window creaked slightly, Jak letting himself in after biking back from the school. He helped himself to the noodles, since they were for him, not her. She'd eat dinner later, but he would stay hidden.

"Tomorrow." She muttered, her pen scratching in the paper. She was doing more math, a few geometrical figures sketched onto the paper with values scribbled next to them. "It all ends tomorrow."

"Ends?" He asked, putting the bowl down for a second to shut her window again. No use asking for disaster if Ann decided to go for a walk or something and heard them talking from the outside. "It all starts tomorrow."

She nodded, a small frown on her face. After a few moments, she made a confession. "I'm scared."

"Why?" He asked gently, sitting next to her and delaying on food.

"Leaving my family. All my friends." She sighed, shaking her head and shutting the notebook, putting it aside for the moment. "I'm about to lose them all. It's terrifying; but I have no choice at all. I have to take that step if I want to survive, and I can't even say goodbye to them... not properly, anyway."

He nodded a little, putting a hand on her shoulder. "I'm sorry."

"Why are you sorry?" She snorted. "It's my fault. I built the device that started this whole mess."

"But you told me that I inspired you." He pointed out. "My story was your inspiration for the idea of liquid energy."

"You didn't make me do it though." She shook her head, leaning on him as he curled his arm around her shoulders. "I'm about to become an orphan, Jak. No offense, but you kinda started that way. I don't think you can understand how I'm feeling right now... I've always had someone, several someones, taking care of me."

"Samos was always looking after me." He pointed out. "Not as... obsessively as your parents do, I'll admit, but I did have someone looking out for me. When I crashed in Haven, fuck yeah I was scared. I was alone, even Dax ran away, leaving me by myself... Two years later and I was sure I was going to die in that prison for crimes unknown. I was sure all the family I'd ever known had been found by the KG and gotten rid of... so yeah, I think I get it."

She looked up, and then blushed. "... sorry."

"It's okay." He nuzzled against her forehead, leaving a soft kiss. "Yeah, you have to give everything up here. You're striking off on your own, without any family or friends to fall back on... but new friends can be made, as ugly as that sounds. And where your family can't hold you up, I'll try to catch you, okay?"

She stared a moment, and then smiled widely. "Y'know, you don't talk much, but when you do talk, you always say the best things. You know that, right?"

As if to prove her point, he just shrugged.

* * *

Loor's parents had been briefed on the party she was going to over dinner, and despite her anxious day she managed to crash fairly early and get a decent amount of sleep. Perhaps all of her stressing had exhausted her, but the fact was that Friday had arrived, and she was terrified.

Excited, but terrified. Moving only her eyes, Loor spied the clock in her room and saw it was four-thirty in the morning, giving her several hours to herself before her mother came to hassle her out of bed. She realized with shock and sadness that it would be the last wake-up call she'd ever get from her mother. Tonight she'd eat her last dinner with her family before the party, and everything would change that night.

_Everything _in her life would change. She'd go back to being an adult in Haven instead of a child in Kingston, just in time for another disaster that she'd be on the front lines for. Her family would be left behind, wondering where she went, morning her loss and then getting interrogated by the authorities, same with her friends.

Damian had to get rid of the devices, she reminded herself. She needed to remind him. His home was sure to be searched if anyone made slip about their partnership in amateur inventing.

She wondered if she should do something; make a note for her family that suggested her as a runaway, or perhaps something as extreme as suicide. It would give them some closure, albeit horrible and tragic. She gave the thought several moments to work through her mind, then decided against it. Her family didn't deserve more lies on top of the ones she'd already told them, and further deception by not telling them anything.

They didn't deserve any of this.

Tears came, silent in the darkness, streaking form Loor's eyes as she thought of all these things. She stared at the ceiling, a blurry and muddled landscape of black shadow and dim green light coming from her stereo's digital clock, made all the more distorted for the water coming from her eyes. Sliding down her cheeks and adsorbing into her pillow, it took the sting of the salty water against the back of her neck before she even noticed.

Breathing a long sigh, she sat up and then slid out of bed. Quietly she crept to her closet, cracked the door open, and found Jak. He was sound asleep, laying back in the corner with his head on top of two rumpled pillows. She hesitated, fearing that she might wake him up, but the ache in her chest demanded comfort. She was about to lose everything, and once she left this house she wouldn't be able to show how much it hurt inside. She was too tough to have feelings like these... but she did.

She fell down next to him, nuzzling up under his chin and forcing her arms around his middle, drawing his sleeping deadweight into a hug. Snoring softly, he shifted a little while mumbling something in his sleep. An arm that had simply fallen over her curled into a clumsy hug in return, and then he was still again.

And she cried. She whispered and whined against his neck and over his shoulder, sobbing out her feelings of loss and fear. Sometimes she squeezed him as the sobs became more violent, and sometimes he squeezed her back, letting her know that at some point he'd woken up. Embarrassment tried to stop her outburst, but he softly encouraged her to vent.

This was their quiet place. This was where she was allowed to feel these things and not be ashamed of it.

Eventually the tears stopped and dried, but she didn't move when that happened. She just lay next to him, listening to her own wheezy and wet breathing, sniffing and hiccuping occasionally. He didn't say anything, just smoothing her hair back and resting his lips on her forehead.

"It's really early..." She muttered, eventually. "I should go back to sleep... or shower."

"Might be a good idea." He agreed. "I could use a bath too."

"You first, less chance of getting caught this early in the morning."

Things started moving from there. He went first, with Lauren standing in the hallway outside of the bathroom to listen for sounds in the rest of the house. She didn't know what she'd do if someone woke up and investigated the running shower, but thankfully no one did. He returned to his hiding place when it was her turn for a scrub-down, and Loor did a fast job of getting clean for her final day at home.

She had to stop thinking of it that way, or she was going to cry again. It wasn't her last day. It wasn't the end.

It was a beginning. The beginning to the rest of her life, just like Jak said.

Despite it being short, she felt better when she got out of the shower. She didn't bother going back to bed, instead getting dressed and sitting up with Jak until her wake-up call came. The morning moved on quickly, though both Mom and Ann would notice that Lauren was particularly huggy today. The ride over to school and Jak's arrival were uneventful, though a few kids noticed that Loor had actually dressed like a girl today. She was wearing jeans borrowed from her elder sister that kinda fit with the addition of a black leather belt and a brown long sleeved shirt with a deep V-neck, worn tucked in. She still kept her trademark boots, but she tied her hair back today, the black-and-blond cascade shiny from her recent shower.

Despite years of trying to make herself look as grubby as possible at school, she cleaned up pretty nice, and it made her happy when she caught a few people looking.

"Enjoying the attention?" Jak pointed out her smile with his nudge of a comment, and an actual bump to her shoulder. They were both sitting against the wall on the far end of the lunch room.

"Depends." She said, not even bothering to hide it. "Do you like the way I look?"

He nodded, not adding words. He would have said it made her look older, whereas the frumpy clothes made her look like a big child, but he imagined she wouldn't appreciate that observation at the moment. He, on the other hand, had the honor of wearing some of her clean guy-clothes. Army-patterned cargo pants and a black T-shirt, also tucked in and belted, were both comfy and functional.

First bell rang, and Friday began. The air was abuzz with kids excited for the weekend all through the morning, chatting up plans. Clear on the radar was Cuni's end of the summer party; she'd invited half the school, and those who were invited were definitely coming; not going would boot them off of the social tower and into the valley of dork-dom. Questions were going around all the time; who was going? Who wasn't? Who was bringing a date along? Were they supposed to bring snacks or just show up? Did she have a theme this year?

Loor felt quite sick by the time second hour was over, she and Jak on their way to gym. Any other time she would be listening to all this drivel and be simply annoyed by it, but word had gotten around that she was invited, and that led people to ask her if she and Cuni had suddenly become friends. This question came in various tones. Popular kids were surprised; Cuni and Loor's position with each other had been quite clear since last year, and no one had expected the landscape to change. Not so popular kids sounded betrayed; Loor was their protector, and the sound of her going to one of Cuni's parties was the sound of their protector flirting with the enemy. They feared Loor becoming part of that enemy, since any other girl who went to one of those parties became one of Cuni's cronies.

Loor spent her morning smugly confirming her invitation with the non-believers, and soothing the nerves of the downtrodden. She was kinda glad she'd never make it to high school.

The sick feeling came from how many people knew that Cuni had personally told her to come to this party; ordered her really... and Loor was obeying that order. Regardless to whom she talked to that morning, everyone had a particular way of looking at her; like a dangerous animal that had finally been collared. Everyone already thought she was on Cuni's string; another puppet.

Gym couldn't have come soon enough, Loor had a lot of steam to blow off, trying to obliterate the image of herself on that little weasel's leash. She had to get rid of it before the anger woke up Lyra again.

Sadly, today wasn't dodge ball; it was a 'fun run' to begin class, followed by an intro to volleyball. Everyone got to sit on the floor around their teacher and listen about the rules and such of the game... leaving Loor with that disturbing image and all of her rage.

_**You need to kill her. **_

_I can't kill people around here._ Loor batted back, zoning out. She knew how to play volleyball, and it would be better to talk to the monster rather than ignore her.

_**Why not? You are disappearing... what would stop you? I've picked your memories apart, I understand the law that rules this place, but it wouldn't have time to catch you. Just before we make our escape, you... we could rip her limb from limb, and no one would ever catch you. **_

_I'm not interested in murder. You can't just kill a person because you don't like how they conduct themselves or how they treat you._

_**You certainly thought about killing Errol, just for how he treated you. **_

_That's different, he was actually evil. He'd already killed several people himself, and he was trying to kill me. That would have been... well, not good, or even justified, but I'd be able to live with it. _

_**What about all the Guards you slaughtered? You've killed many, Loor. Shot them, stabbed them, electrocuted them until they died. What of them? **_

_They were trying to kill me too. _

Loor could feel the fact that her jaw was clenched, despite mostly dropping out of the world to speak in her mind. Lyra was trying to trick her into thinking taking a life was okay, which was simply not true. She couldn't kill someone as her last action at home. It just wasn't right, no matter how mean and disgusting Cuni was.

_**That girl is trying to control you. I want her to know what the fuck she's messing with. **_

Lyra's rage burned white-hot; she didn't really care for Loor's morals or feelings. The fact was that she wanted to kill something, and Cuni was the creature that had earned it the most... not that anyone had to earn a monster's attention. It just happened that she stuck out the most.

_I'm not going to kill anyone just because you want me to! You can calm the fuck down until we get back to Haven. _

_**And what if I decide to take the situation into my own hands? **_

Loor felt fear bloom in her mind; it broke her own anger and the sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. Cuni vanished from her mind. _You'll kill us if you do that. We don't have enough. Lyra, don't even think about it, we don't have enough to survive the change. _

**_My, my, didn't take much to scare you out of your big-girl boots._** The beast laughed at her. **_I know, Little Loor. I am far more intimate with the feel of eco in our body, I know exactly how low we are. _**

_Then don't even fucking suggest it. Just... go back to sleep for a while. Rest, and ignore my issues. Leave me alone until we get back to Haven. I'm not going to block you, I'm asking nicely. _

_**No, no, I don't think so. I'll watch, just to see what you'll do. I don't want to go back into stasis and miss something good. Even if you won't kill her, I've seen your imaginings of violence towards her. You want to hurt her. You want to cause her pain. You wanted this before I existed. I want to watch, and enjoy the show.**_

Loor growled out loud. _There won't be anything to see. _

Loor came out of her trance-like state when she felt an elbow in her ribs. Shocking back to reality she looked up to see Jak staring intensely at her, a few of her classmates giving her a funny look. The lecture hadn't stopped on her account, but the people around her had heard her growl and were now looking at her with a measure of curiosity, and a little fear. She had a scary look on her face.

She looked down, flushing slightly.

"Everything okay?" Jak asked softly, whispering to avoid notice from the rest of the class and the teacher.

"Fine." She lied at first, following with some of the truth. "Lyra's just been listening to my thoughts a little too much... She wants me to hurt the girl that's hosting the party tonight. Expects it, really."

"You're not going to, are you?"

Loor didn't answer right away, taking several long breaths before nodding.

"Not un-provoked."

* * *

**The Author's Corner**

ANOTEHR CHAPTER! Yes, I'm finally getting back to my usual update rate, which is many within a week. My wrists hurt, but this makes me feel good. And I need to feel good right now... My husband (I'm married now, BTW) was deployed today. He's submarine service; I'm not allowed to know where he is because of this. No phone calls. No letters. Just e-mails every now and then, at pretty much random times because the boat's ability to send and receive messages depends on their depth in the ocean. I get very depressed and lonely during the time he's gone, but the first day is always the worst.

But I'm getting through it. Lots of comfort food.

Until next time,

-Loor


	28. Dance Floor

**I don't own Jak.**

**Vacation or War- Return  
****Chapter Twenty Eight- Dance Floor**

Despite being too angry to have any appetite, Jak forced Loor to eat at lunch. Tonight was going to be big for them, and he knew from personal experience that traveling through any sort of time vortex was both disorienting and exhausting.

"So what's the plan?" Damian asked as he and Alex arrived at the lunch table, not wasting any time with pleasantries. "I mean, when is my 'go' time? Are you gonna hang out and try to have fun, or is this gonna be an in-and-out affair?"

Loor took the excuse to look up from her half-eaten burger without question, making Jak frown at her as she gladly ignored her food. "Party starts at seven, but the sun still sets really late... I wanna wait at least an hour for it to be completely dark outside; I don't want anyone noticing you sneaking onto the property to find a place to plug in the device. As I've understood from the rumors going around today this is going to be a mostly outdoor party, taking place in the back yard. Dancing on the back patio, snacks on tables, maybe even a bonfire, blah, blah, blah... Jak and I show up, I pretend to set Jak up with her, I go dance by myself for an hour, Jak cuts the queen bitch loose, and we flee from the party like the shameful incestuous couple we are. I don't know the place, so we'll just have to find you, I guess."

"Or I can find you guys." Damian shot back. "She's invited a lot of people to this thing; I'm pretty sure I can sneak through the crowd and nab you guys when I'm ready."

"I still can't believe you guys are going..." Alex sighed, looking upset. "You promised to come back for me, right guys? Don't forget, or I'll come chasing after you."

"We won't forget." Jak assured before Loor could say anything to the contrary. "It might be a year or two though. Be patient."

Alex frowned, rolling her eyes and shutting down. "Just come back before the world blows up or whatever..."

"As fast as we can." He said this with a reassuring smile. Alex either didn't notice or wasn't impressed, she just stared at her lunch tray.

Lunch continued with a lot of good-byes as Stephie and Katie arrived. Everyone was a little upset and uptight, making the whole of lunch a tense affair that Loor was glad to be over with when the bell rang. Afternoon classes were boring, the rumor mill still working hard and pumping around the news of Loor and Cuni's new alliance. At first Loor tried to put out the fires before they started, but she realized it was no use. The kids she usually protected might as well have their guards up; she wasn't coming back on Monday to protect them. She'd be gone, and Cuni would be pissed and eager to take it out on someone. They'd be better prepared for Monday if they all thought she'd gone to the dark side.

So she went with it. Yeah, sure, why not? She and Cuni could pretend to be friends for a day. She was invited to the party, right? Cuni had made a point of telling everyone, or at least enough of everyone that they told everyone else. Yeah, her cousin was coming too. It became a sort of persona for the last few periods of school, allowing her to forget the sick feeling that took whenever she thought about the fact that she was technically blackmailed into this situation.

As always, Jak stood by quietly, giving her a nudge whenever she got just a little too into the whole thing. A few girls tried to talk to him, but he never had much to say. Most of them could be dismissed by a smile, a nod, a shake of the head, or a shrug. Did he like his cousin? Did giants run in the family? Did he like Minnesota? The only time he had to speak was when the question 'When are you going back to Florida?' was asked, to which the answer was always short and to the point; 'This weekend.'

The day drained away, period by period, until the last bell rang. Finally, the last bell rang. Kids blasted out into the halls to retrieve their things and head home, and Loor took her usual slow and leisurely pace to her locker after the crowd had cleared. Jak would be riding home with her this time, passed off as a friend who was going with her to the party tonight, which made her smile for a reason she didn't even know. Maybe she was pretending she was just a normal girl with a boyfriend for a couple of seconds.

Turning the corner to her locker bay, the smile fell off.

Cuni was waiting in ambush. "Hey!" She said like she and Loor were buddies, wearing a big smile on her painted face. "You guys _are_ coming tonight, right?"

Jak gave a glance to Loor, as if asking if this was the girl. Loor nodded, looking back to Cuni to answer. "Yeah, we'll be there. I guess I'll introduce you two. Jak, Cuni. Cuni, my cousin Jak."

"Who the hell even talks like that anymore?" Cuni snorted, looking at Loor like she was a lame-wad. "I know who he is," she smiled, coming forward and looking at Jak directly. "And all _you_ need to know is I like you."

"I think I might be a little out of your height bracket." Jak said with both brows raised, looking down at the tiny Spanish girl.

"You can bend over." She said, used to having people wrapped around her little finger. "Anyway, it's gonna be a lot of fun tonight. Don't keep me waiting, okay?"

"We get it." Loor snapped, having moved to her locker to unload her textbooks.

Cuni ignored Loor, shrugging and flipping her long and curly black hair over her shoulder, giving Jak a wink before leaving the locker bay, strutting like a model down the runway.

Jak blinked a couple times, until Loor slammed her locker shut and gave him a look. Finally, after silence, he asked a question. "What the _hell_ was _that_ about?"

"She thinks she's building dramatic tension. She likes you, and assumes you like her because she exists. So she appears here to get in my face, and try to get your attention." Loor sighed, shaking her head. "I don't get it... she thinks she's royalty. Pretty little princess, and everyone is supposed to love her and bow down."

"She's Daxter's size. Maybe she should try hitting on him."

"He'd hit on her, if he were here." Loor pointed out, starting to walk to head for the lunchroom.

"I think I'm with Lyra on this one..." He muttered, following after.

"Eh?"

"I kinda want you to hurt her. It would be really fun to watch."

* * *

The party was everything Loor expected it to be; a princess's banquet. Dropped off by her sister, Loor and Jak arrived just before seven. Signs pointed guests to walk around the sizable house; an upper-middle-class home of at least three floors, built into a hill and showing all the care of a family obsessed with image and prestige. The path around the house was dirt and flagstones cut into a perfect green lawn, despite it being early fall and the colors beginning to show in the trees. Descending the hill, the land evened out again at the back of the house and the path led to a large wooden patio attached to the back of the house.

Music was already coming from an impressive stereo set up on the railing of the deck, though it was a pity such powerful speakers were being wasted on pop music. Some other guests had already arrived and were helping themselves to some snacks on picnic tables set up around a large burn pit beyond the patio. The whole yard screamed professional landscaping.

Loor's first thought was that she'd never dance to the crap that was playing unless they turned it up a lot louder, but that came from the fact that she was tense. They were approaching the final hour fast, and she just didn't know what to do with herself. She had the feeling she'd just trip over her own feet if she danced.

Either way, more guests arrived and Loor eventually recognized some school mates she could stand to talk to. Jak followed as usual, until the princess appeared on the deck to crank the music and announce her presence to her adoring public.

Cuni bathed in her personal glory of being the lady of the evening, wearing a black tube top that would have gotten her into so much trouble at school but simply showed off her belly piercing here. Followed by a set of snug jeans an platform heels that had no place at an outdoor party, and she was looking every bit like her usual self. There was the brief appearance of an adult that was quite possibly Cuni's father to light the bonfire, and the rest of the evening was left to the kids.

Despite Loor's ick against Cuni, her family had built a good fire. It towered high and lit up the dimming yard. With the music turned loud, she could almost get into a mood to have a little fun.

Then Cuni stepped down from the deck where some of the other kids were already starting to dance, her sights locked on Jak. Jak looked to Loor; he knew this was his pain of the night, complying with Cuni's demands for the evening, but he still didn't look happy about it.

"Roll with it." Loor said quietly while the Hispanic princess was still en-rout. "Hour or less, promise."

"Hour too much, I can already tell." He muttered, turning towards Cuni and forcing a smile as a greeting.

"Dance with me?" It was phrased as a question, but it was clearly an order.

Jak looked back at Loor, aqua eyes begging for rescue. Loor shook her head, instead giving him a push towards her. "Don't need my permission, _cousin." _

"But then you'll be all alone." He pointed out, relenting against the fact that there really wasn't an escape. It was true, everyone had left the fire to dance on the deck, though truth be told they weren't really dancing. They were bouncing up and down to the beat of the music, girls grooving their hips and guys pumping their fists in the air. It was the way middle school kids danced, but it was ultimately unimpressive.

"She's always alone." Cuni said rudely. "It's just the way she's made to be, right Loor?"

Loor felt her jaw clenching again. She held back though, ignoring the same rage that coursed through Lyra's emotions. The beast _was_ watching. "Right." She growled through her teeth. "Go on. Have fun."

"I'll pay you back later, okay?" Jak said, though Loor understood the payback she'd be getting wouldn't be for leaving her alone, but for her leaving him alone with Cuni.

"I'll give you a free hit." She promised as Cuni began to drag him towards the patio, leaving her alone at the fire. She was okay with this; she'd get her last few moments in this time to breathe and listen to the music.

It wasn't that bad, now that she listened a little closer. She was mainly a rock girl, but she also enjoyed techno, and pop wasn't too far from that when you listened to the higher energy stuff, which was what was being pumped out of those high-end speakers. She even knew a few of the songs, despite how little she exposed herself to media besides games. If pressed she could come up with titles, but right now all she was coming up with was a beat. It was making her bend her knees, bouncing a little as her toes tapped with the pulse.

She was finding her groove. She couldn't help it; she wanted to dance.

She glanced up at the patio; it was positively packed with kids. Jak was easiest to find; he was taller than all the little seventh-graders, and clearly only going through the motions. He was bored up there, and feeling awkward. She felt sorry for putting him through this, but it wouldn't be much longer. The sun was nearly all the way down, and with darkness on their side Damian would be on his way.

One track on the stereo ended, starting another that put a cheer up from the crowd of kids. It must have been popular, and Loor could understand why. Listening to it she found it rather catchy, her toe tapping against the ground a little more insistently, as if her feet were going to drag her to the nearest patch of open space to dance.

Loor needed open areas to dance in. Her style was influenced by three things; her elder sister being in ballet once upon a time, both of her elder siblings being in karate a long time ago, and a bit of advice from her mother. Ever since Lauren was small, her mother always told her one thing when it came to the way she danced.

_'Dance like no one is looking.'_

Finally, she compiled with the pulse in her ears. The patio had too many people; she took a patch of grass near the bonfire to dance by herself. She preferred it that way; she often ended up kicking people who got too close when she was having fun. She honestly didn't know if she was a 'good' dancer, but she did know that she had fun, and that was all that mattered to her.

Her feet began to move her with the pulse of the beat, while her arms moved in wide and sweeping motions, her body following along. She focused on the music, picking up on the patterns in the percussion and moving without thought. There were words, but she wasn't paying attention to them. No, she was moving back and forth, smiling as the moves came out of the aether, natural as breathing.

She was just getting into it when she heard someone yelling over the music. She didn't stop; why should she care? Still, the voice yelled again, and she realized how close a person would have to be for her to hear them over the din.

Stopping, she looked to find Cuni on the ground and looking at her like she was a nimrod. "You're doing it wrong!" She shouted over the music.

"Eh?" Loor raised an eyebrow, glancing at the rest of the party. A fair amount of kids were on the patio, looking at them. Watching. Lauren realized she'd angered the princess with her way of separating from the crowd and doing her own thing. Everyone was watching to see what kind of action Cuni was going to take against her insolence.

"Watch!" Cuni demanded. "It's like this!"

Loor watched as Cuni did a particular dance step in time with the music. Obviously this song was popular for more than it's sound; there was a particular dance that went with it... and she was expected to do it. Honestly, it wasn't a bad move... but it was simple. Loor like dynamic moves when she was dancing, and shook her head. She stepped in closer to Cuni to make talking easier. "Listen, this isn't a big deal. I don't dance like that, so how about you go and do your thing, I do mine, and we both have f-"

Cuni put her hand out to make the 'stop' sign in Loor's face, turning both her body away and her nose up in the air. She'd taken the perfect aristocratic posture. "I don't have to listen to you, tramp!"

Loor blinked at the hand in her face. Her own words had been reasonable. Nothing but reasonable. Simple. A 'live and let live' plea.

And she'd been shut down.

Ignored.

Before she knew what she was doing, she lashed out. She took Cuni by her outstretched arm at the wrist, twisting hard to get the girl to face her again and lifting her up by the appendage to bring her in close; face-to-face. Heat pulsed through her, and she felt her other hand curling up to deal a punch to the little weasel's gut. It would be so easy.

_So easy. _

_**Too easy.**_

Jak realized what was happening before anyone else did, even Lauren. He felt something he hadn't felt for weeks, and yelled while jumping the railing of the patio. Kids yelled, some of Cuni's cronies running to her aid while others backed off from the sudden violence of the attack. Jak was aimed right for Loor, to tackle her before she did any real damage.

But the burn on his skin told him he was already too late. The hair on the nape of his neck standing up, the electricity prickling in his spine, the fire running through his eco-depelted veins. All of these feelings meant one thing.

Lyra was loose.

* * *

**The Author's Corner**

I suck, don't I?

Yeah, I think I do.

ONWARD! WE'RE ALMOST DONE!

-Loor


	29. Homecoming

**I don't own Jak. This is the last chapter of this book; as following with my usual patterns I will complete and upload the first chapter of the next book before uploading this chapter, so it will be ready by the time you're finished reading here. Enjoy. :D **

**Vacation or War- Return  
****Chapter Twenty Nine- Homecoming**

The small creature in Lyra's talons had ripped apart like a tissue, spraying blood all around and giving her an invigorating rush of sensation. She'd been dormant too long; the rush coming from all of her senses was quite intoxicating. The corpse was still holding had lost a hand upon her transformation, along with most internal organs, since Loor's fist had already been planted in her stomach. Now she dug her claws in and stretched her arms out to full-span, bathing in the splatter and joying the horrified screams of the onlookers. There was so much fear, her nose wasn't sure which scent was the strongest and thus best to peruse first. There wasn't much time.

But there was another smell too. Seawater. Anger.

Her eyes darted to the side just in time to see a shape hurtling towards her, taken by surprise and then tackled to the ground. She hadn't seen him properly, but she knew him by the time she was on the grass. He knew to take her by the wrists and keep away from her teeth; only one person would know her danger that well.

The male. Jak had pinned her before she could have any fun at all.

He was shouting at her, rage clear on his face. If he had any sort of a charge she was sure she'd be fighting with his other self in moments, but sadly this boy was empty when it came to eco. She could smell the taint in him scent, but his blood had nothing for her to drain, nothing for her to feed on.

He was still shouting. She felt her ears going back, bearing her teeth at him, yowling for release over all the noise, all the screaming. She wanted to chase those screams, cause pain, take life. It was her basic programming, and she couldn't resist it. She wanted it, and he was in the way! She shook and struggled, but all she managed to do was to dislodge his knee to her land on her tail, causing _her_ pain.

She roared at him now, desperate to get free. She had moments, moments before she'd be drained and forced to rest. Without thinking she expended the same charge that was keeping her alive to try and get him off, but he barely winced.

And her senses suddenly started to dull.

She still roared; screamed until her lungs were not her own anymore, and nothing more than a pathetic sob came through as her powerful body returned to something so weak and pathetic she could hardly stand it.

Something so _human. _

And then Lyra felt nothing.

She returned to the darkness.

* * *

Jak had watched the attack at a full run, trying to get there before blood hit the ground but failing. Loor's body somehow stayed upright as it transformed, simply bending over slightly as everything changed about her in the light of the bonfire. Skin turned from peach to white, fur rose up over the skin on her ears and down her spine, tail and claws extending from her body in an instant as sparks of eco traced the whole thing, finding their way to the ground around her feet, killing the grass.

Talons on one hand sheared off Cuni's hand as they grew into existence, the other set appearing through her back from where Loor's fist had been shoved into the girl's stomach. Violence turned to gore as Lyra emerged and literally tore the little girl apart, dropping the pieces and sniffing the air for her next target, black eyes open and starting to take in the area.

And then he hit her, taking her to the ground, holding her tightly while remembering all of her dangers. "Let her go!" He demanded at once, yelling. "You'll kill her!"

She didn't respond but to struggle. She was strong, almost too strong, but the only part of his hold that slipped was one of his knees, landing on her tail and making her bellow in pain and irritation at being trapped.

"Let her go!" He repeated, roaring himself. "You'll both die, you know that, don't you? Stop killing her!"

Her back arched, her teeth reaching for him as she tried to snap at his face, still screaming and letting off a jolt of pure eco.

He felt it. He didn't experience pain, but fear. He winced as a single outward reaction, realizing that everything was crashing down. Lyra was ruining everything by using the last of Loor's eco. She started changing back, and the scream turned to Loor crying into the grass, and Jak let her go to pick her up and hold her close.

He felt nothing. No buzz past her skin. No burn.

"No..." She muttered, coming around. She was crying still, coughing from the violent treatment of her voice. "She... no..."

"She did." He answered, getting up and lifting her along. The area was deserted for the moment, all of the kids having fled either into the house or into the woods around the house. He didn't have time to go searching, instead shouting. Everything right now depended on one thing. One person.

"Damian! Are you out there?"

"Over here!" The call came back, giving Jak some relief. He turned to find Loor's friend hiding behind a tree just beyond the bonfire. "What the... I mean... _what the hell _was that? Her...?"

"The dark side of her, yeah." Jak jerked his head towards the house. "Let's move."

The younger boy complied, hoofing it for the house and heading for the stereo; it was making a lot of unneeded noise and the wire led Damian straight to a plug he could use. He had a pack over his shoulder with everything he needed inside; it would take mere moments to set up the device and activate it. Still, he was shaken, staring at Loor where she sat in Jak's arms. It looked like she'd passed out. "Is she... is she dying?"

"Yeah." There was a tight frown on Jak's face. "Hurry it up."

Damian nodded quickly, yanking the cord on the noisy music machine. With the power cut the music stopped and the night became frighteningly silent. In moments he had his pack open and fished out a black box that required a number-code to open which he quickly entered. With a pop it came open, revealing the silver sphere that was one of Loor's many VC devices with a wire attached.

Damian handed the ball to Jak. "Get some distance, I don't wanna get wrapped up with this. Alex is the one who wants to make the trip through time, not me."

Jak nodded, shifting his hold on Loor to take the little device. She was out for the count and completely dead weight; Damian could see her skin turning whiter by the moment. "She wanted to say goodbye," Jak said quickly, "but I guess I'll have to say so for her. Thanks for everything. We'll be back someday, but we're counting on you and the others to cover up this mess. Get rid of all the devices. Destroy them all."

"What about when you guys come back? You'll need a way home." Damian threw out, still watching Loor. This wasn't the time to argue, but he couldn't help it.

Jak shook his head, ending the discussion by agreeing. "Fine, keep one and hide it. Don't let anyone find it."

"Alright, you got it, now move so I can plug this thing in!"

Jak nodded, turning and trotting away a fair distance. Damian had put a cord that was better than twenty feet long, just to be safe, on the device. One Jak had drawn the cord out, Damian pulled out the other end and lined it up with the plug.

He looked at them for a moment more, in the glow of the bonfire.

"Good luck you guys." He muttered.

He then slammed the plug home. There was a moment of a delay, and he could see the questioning look on Jak's face, wondering if it was working. Questioning turned to worry; if the device failed, Loor would be dead. There wouldn't be enough time.

He began to take a step forward, back to Damian, when he felt it. The burn of eco, coming from the little ball in his hand. He looked down, his mouth open to exclaim some sort of surprise, but the noise never had the chance to come out.

There was a brief flash of light, and both Jak and Loor vanished, leaving nothing but a burnt patch of grass on the ground.

* * *

Jak had been wondering what the return to Haven would be like. It was nothing like traveling through the rift ring, where his physical body had traveled with him through time and likely a span of space. It was also different from how he'd arrived in Loor's time, a modified body that would fit into her era receiving his awareness; nude as a newborn babe. No, his return to Haven city was not like either of these journeys through time.

Instead, in that bright flash of light, he felt as if he'd been knocked out. Panic jolted through him, losing all of his senses, including the feel of Loor in his arms. He needed to help her before she was beyond help, but he couldn't even figure out where his fingers were to wiggle them. This feeling continued for a moment, and then muddy color bloomed as his vision returned. These colors were mostly black, blue, and shades of gray. He wondered if he was blinded by the flash, if something had gone horribly wrong.

Next he realized he was standing, and sounds began to penetrate his brain. Booms, almost like the sounds of shots being fired but much, much bigger. These, like his vision, were dim and muddled, as if they were really far away.

And then, in a way that could only be described as rude, it all jumped into sharp focus. Loud explosions, flashes of colored light in a dark night sky, and the sounds of people and festive music.

The victory party after Kor's defeat. They had made it back! Jak had to blink, feeling as if he was waking up from a terrifying daydream. This was where he and Loor had stood to watch the fireworks; the explosions he'd been hearing that were still going on. He felt his brow knitting, almost wondering if it had all been a long and elaborate dream brought on by excitement of a battle won and a little too much wine. In moments he was doubting all the memories he had of going after Loor, looking to his right to look for her. She was by his side, last he checked.

And there she stood, looking up at the fireworks with wonder on her face, a hint of a smile at the corner of her lips. He blinked, then smiled. A dream, a wild flight of fancy! She was okay, right here, perfectly safe.

He reached out to her, putting a hand on her shoulder. "Loor."

She blinked, once, twice, three times before looking at him. Her brow was furrowed, looking at him with her mouth slightly open. "J-Jak..." She stuttered, wavering on the spot, leaning on his hand to keep balance.

His relief was fading as fast as the color in her face. They were back, but everything had indeed happened. They'd simply loaded back into the time-line, back to where their bodies already existed, retaking awareness. Taking stock he could feel the fact that there was no eco in his system. Or hers.

He caught her as her legs gave out, losing conciseness again as he was left to take action. She needed help, and he couldn't give it. Options ticked through his mind, but nothing actually seemed like a good idea.

"Jak? What, Loor pass out already?"

Blinking and turning, Jak found that Torn and Ashelin had found a place near-by to watch the fireworks themselves. They'd only been a few feet down the way, and Torn had turned and noticed when he sensed something wrong going on near-by. "Loor needs help!" He said quickly, hefting the girl up to carry her again. "Now!"

"What happened?" Ashelin was paying attention now, reaching for her communicator. Most everyone else had given up their comm. unit for the night, surrendering to the idea of letting go and partying, but Ashelin was the new Baroness; she had to keep in contact in case of a disaster.

Torn was looking at the girl for obvious wounds while Jak searched for the words to describe her condition. Like any trained military man, he recognized something he'd seen before. "For the love of- Again? How could she let this happen again?"

"It's not her fault!" Jak snapped. "And I can't help her!"

"What's going on? What can we do?" Ashelin demanded, not letting the boys argue.

"Loor's dying; her body is eco-dependant, and she let herself run out, _again!" _Torn snarled, glaring at the couple that was effectively ruining the party. "She needs it, the raw form like what we mine, or find in metal head blood, before her body shuts down."

Ashelin stared for a moment, her eyes curious, until she shook her head and got down to business. "Jak, take her to the palace. We've converted the bottom floors into a hospital. I'll call ahead and prepare them for you. We've been using eco in every from we can find for power, including metal head blood. Just get her there, fast!"

No more words were exchanged, Jak turning and running for the nearest zoomer. Getting to the palace was easy, since the whole of the city was in the port section and celebrating.

Celebrating his victory.

_Their_ victory. She may not have been needed, but she did help.

And now here she was, one of the city's heroes.

Dying.

* * *

To say that Jak made it to the palace in record time would have been an understatement. To say the few doctors working with Haven's wounded were confused with the suggested treatment of Loor's sickness was also an understatement. Still, they were ready when Jak arrived, just as Ashelin said. There were no beds, but there were squares of bedding being used for the patients, both on the floor and on tables. Loor was laid on a table, one medical person prepping her arm for an IV while another brought over a rack for a drip. The drip itself had clearly been cobbled together in a rush; a container of treated glass containing the dark and vital substance swung from the rack instead of the usual plastic baggy, and similar industrially-treated tubing had been forced to connect with both the container and the needle they were inserting into Loor's arm to make the connection.

Regardless of all that, the substance started to flow when the tourniquet was taken away.

"What _is_ she?" One of the doctors asked, watching the area around where the IV met Loor's arm. Obviously he was expecting the usual effects of eco on the human body; burns, contamination, and eventually, death. None of these things were happening to her, and he was puzzled.

"She helped me save this place." Jak snapped at him, still charged up. There were no guarantees until Loor woke up. She was still breathing, but it was possible too much of her body had already shut down. He would be by her side until she woke up. "We're both a little fucked up, but we're the one's who ripped Kor's fucking head off, so take it easy."

The medical man was shocked back by Jak's words, not prepared for such harsh words or the tense tone. Not wanting to endure anymore, he excused himself to tend to some of the other wounded, the other curious nurses and otherwise backing off as well. They either feared Jak, or understood his stress and decided to leave him alone.

Which left Jak with Loor, watching her. Her color had not improved, but her chest was moving with long and full breaths, like she was sleeping. That was better than last time; he remembered last time. She'd barely been breathing at all, and the rest of her body had just up and quit for the most part.

She almost didn't make it that last time, making him realize just how much he didn't want to lose her.

Now it was more than that. He knew he loved her, and some sort of twisted fate was trying to take her away again.

He sat on the edge of the table, next to her head, to watch and wait.

He'd be there, waiting, until she woke up.

_**To be Continued...**_

"_You find your way back down,  
__And I'll keep the area clear  
__You find your way back down, in one piece  
__And I'll just be waiting here  
__Right here."_

* * *

**The Author's Corner**

Goddamnit, I'm a bitch, aren't I? So I'm kinda breaking one of my patterns here; I got a thing for ending fics on a five or a ten (40, 35, 70, numbers like that) and this one is going to land on a 29... oh well, I'll live with it, I'm just so fucking happy to be done with this book. SO. HAPPY.

Now we can get back to the fun stuff. The adventures. Fuck all this sappy romantic-comedy-drama shit, we like adventure, right? Right. :D

**LEGAL STUFF: **

**I, Lauren Chalupnik, DO own the characters Loor/Lauren, Lyra, Ryan, Mikey, Morgan, Artimus, and Teek. Do not use without permission.**

**Fury/Chelsea, Alex, and Damian all belong to their respective creators and were used with permission.**

**The story 'Vacation or War' is my intellectual property. Please ask before using specific concepts such as the IV branch of the Dark Warrior Program unless you are NDI. I am not and will not attempt to sell this work for any sort of profit. Everything is for entertainment purposes.**

**I do not own Jak, Daxter, or any other copy-written items mentioned in this work of fiction. **

**The song lyrics at the end are from the song 'Clear the Area' by IMOGEN HEAP; I don't own that either. **


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